Captive Voice
by Nashidesei
Summary: Jak has been captured and is being used in Praxis' experiments. The torture is unbearable, but his captors are disappointed when they discover that he can't scream. They decide to repair his damaged voice 'in exchange' for using him in their experiments.
1. The Dark Eco Captain

**Author's Note: **This is my first _Jak and Daxter_ fic, and it's a work in progress—any advice you have, please give. Constructive criticism accepted, appreciated, adored. The story may be mildly AU as I have not finished the game series yet and so do not have a perfect knowledge of canon.

**Disclaimer: **_Jak II_ and all related characters, cities, situations and technologies belong to Naughty Dog Incorporated. I am not making any money off this story, as the only part of it I actually own is the story itself.

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**One: The Dark Eco Captain**

The man cocked his head to one side, eye narrowing. "Don't you have anything to say?" He waited a long moment, but the only reply given was a narrowing of blue eyes and clenching of white teeth. The Baron sighed and turned away, back to his prisoner. "Fine, keep quiet while you can. We'll have you talking soon enough."

Jak continued to glare as the men in red dragged him away from the man called the Baron. He straightened and began to walk on his own, nearly-bare feet padding on the cold metal steadily. He glanced sideways at either of his captors, if only so he would know who to hit later, and found only reflective screens of black staring back at him. He let out a long breath and lowered his eyes, thinking.

What did they want with him? That Baron character hadn't said, but Jak had a terrible feeling that went far beyond the ache of the bruise forming on his forehead. He had fought Gol and Maia with little trepidation—the only problem he had was that he and Daxter might very well die in the process of destroying the eco-tainted siblings. These people, though, were already _people_ to him. Gol and his sister had been monsters, twisted by the power they so admired into something barely recognizable as elfin, but these were men. Soldiers, maybe even murderers, but they were elves.

He wondered if he'd be able to kill another elf.

A door was opened and the two crimson-garbed men shoved the youth in roughly, one hand between his shoulderblades and another on his head. He stumbled into the dark room and turned to look at his captors—but they were already gone.

He gave a sigh and looked around the room. First things first—figure out the easiest way out of this place, and use it before the Baron could do anything to him. After that he would find Daxter, and from there Keira and Samos. Simple.

**OOOOOOOO**

The prisoner next door was screaming. Whatever it was they were doing to him, it hurt more than Jak could probably have any hope of describing. The screams had long ago gone ragged but still they persisted, so loud and so full of emotion that the pale-haired youth reached up and covered his long ears, bringing his knees up to his chest and clenching his blue eyes shut. That was what the Baron mean by talk—they weren't trying to pump him for information, as he initially thought, they were going to hurt him. They were going to make him scream.

The cries at last faded out and Jak let out a relieved sigh, more for himself than the poor soul neighboring him. He wondered how long one could manage to stay sane in this place, surrounded by screams and wondering when yours would join them.

His eyes narrowed slightly and he reached up to touch his neck, bare fingers brushing over his throat. He wouldn't scream for them he _couldn't_ scream for them. He couldn't even speak.

He could recall making only one sound in his entire life, and that one was part of a clouded memory that he had never been able decipher. Light and heat and dirt everywhere—or was it stone? Sand? He remembered strong hands picking him up, and that as he was lifted he gave a single whimper. A lone whine that he would never repeat, the only sound he ever made. He wondered how he had done it more than why—children cried all the time, he had probably fallen down and scraped his knee or something. But when it came to actually making the sound, it was impossible. He wasn't just quiet, he had no voice. Samos himself had explained to Jak's uncle that the boy was mute; there was something wrong with his vocal cords that left him incapable of making sound.

So how could he have whimpered, all those years ago? Was there some sort of accident that left him mute, something he had blocked from his memory? Had that lone noise been before whatever it was that struck him silent?

He raked a hand through his green and gold hair, wrapping an arm around his legs and leaning his chin on his knees. Now was not the time to be asking himself questions about his past—he had spent the last three days looking for some weakness to this room, some bolt he could dislodge or floor plate he could upend to escape and found nothing. If there was anything he _should _have been thinking about it was how to get out of here.

The door creaked open and Jak raised his head. The man that stared down at him was nothing short of terrifying, even though he stood barely hand a taller than the youth. His skin was pale, paler than Jak had ever seen, and his face was covered in bizarre geometric tattoos of deep grey.

His uniform was similar to that of the men then had brought him here, but he had apparently opted not to wear the black mirror of a helmet. He also wore a scattering of blue and yellow amid the scarlet, a sure sign that this man was not like the rest.

"So you're the new one," he said, his voice a hiss, yellow eyes narrowing as he looked the youth up and down. "Not much to look at, but if the Baron's right about you…" He turned to look over his shoulder and nodded; the two guards flanking him came in, taking hold of Jak by the arms and heaving him to his feet.

He glared and pulled free off one gloved hand, standing tall and straight without their urging.

The man—Jak had labeled him the Captain of the Guard, though he couldn't be sure as yet, chuckled. "Spry little thing," he said, tilting his head ever so slightly to one side. "Going to walk on your own?"

Jak gave a single nod, clenching his hands into fists.

The Captain nodded in reply. "All right, fine. Walk." He turned around and crossed his hands behind his back before starting off. Jak followed, a guard on either side but free of their grip. They passed by the room with the screaming man and he couldn't help but wince at the ragged breathing he could hear from within. Apparently he had passed out, judging by how steady that breathing was. Jak was glad for him; sleep was a good escape from pain. He hoped it would keep him.

The Captain followed Jak's line of sight. "Don't worry about him," he said with a smirk. "He's not going to last much longer; he just can't channel it right."

Jak's brow furrowed. Channel? Channel what? He always used the term in reference to eco, but who couldn't channel eco to the point that it hurt? He kept walking.

"Awfully quiet, aren't you?"

Jak shrugged as they turned a corner, daring a half-smile. If he could convince the Captain that he was quiet only because of his strength things could very well turn out better. Maybe he could intimidate him.

Another look at the armored man banished the thought. This warrior did not intimidate easily; the steely glint in his yellow eyes proved that he had seen his fair share of battle. Compared to that, Jak and his unnatural silence were nothing.

They turned another corner and the Captain stopped; Jak kept moving until he was even with the older man, looking at whatever it was the Captain saw. The youth found himself looking at a chair; at first glance it appeared to be nothing more than a simple metal chair, but further scrutiny proved otherwise.

As they moved forward Jak saw that there were restraints on the armrests and the legs, to strap down wrists and ankles. Above it was a large circle of metal, filled with thousands on pinprick-sized holes, like the waterspouts Keira used to clean his Zoomer and her other machines, but at least five times the size. Above the dimpled metal was a translucent cylinder—glass? Jak had never seen so much in one place, much less part of one structure. But then, this place was very different from home in Sandover, so Jak supposed he should have expected rarities to be in abundance here.

"Have a seat," the Captain said, still moving forward. Jak held back, a familiar scent assailing his olfactory senses. His eyes narrowed—that smell was familiar. It reminded him fleetingly of Daxter, of fighting, and of Gol and Maia. His eyes widened and he looked back up at the rainmaking spout, this time looking up past the glass cylinder—which he realized at that moment was meant to lower over the person sitting in the chair—and following a pipeline that stemmed from the spout.

It twisted and bent, curled and came around until it attached to a massive tank over the door they had entered. Jak's blood went cold as he recognized the surging, shimmering, oily liquid inside. Violet and pink and yellow flared, but overall it was black; it reeked of electricity and stagnant air, of water left to sit too long and charred earth.

"That's right, little boy," the Captain said with a smirk. "You're going to take a little shower, courtesy of the Baron."

Jak turned, staring in shock at the tattooed man. They were going to douse him in dark eco? What could they possibly accomplish by doing that? And where in the world had they gotten that much dark eco in the first place? It was as if they had transported the contents of an entire silo into this one room

"Please, have a seat." The Captain's eyes narrowed, though the smirk never left his face. "Or, if you prefer I can make you sit. It won't be as pleasant, though."

Jak straightened his shoulders and set his jaw, daring the man to try. The Captain's grin broadened slightly and he too straightened, popping the knuckles of one hand and taking a deep breath in preparation for the match.

It wasn't much of a match at all.

**OOOOOOOO**

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	2. The Crackle of Electricity

**Author's Note:** This chapter went quite differently than I expected, but I'm basically playing this entire story by ear—pardon the pun—so I'm not surprised. Again, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

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**Two: The Crackle of Electricity**

Jak was dizzy, his vision a blur as the two crimson-armored guards strapped him into the chair, removing his gloves, goggles and the ring against his chest as they restrained him. One faceless guard turned to the Captain. "Sir, should we leave his tunic on? It might impede the absorption process."

The Captain thought for a moment, squinting in thought. "We might as well take it off—this kid might be our last chance."

The guard nodded and drew a knife, slicing open the front of Jak's tunic, then the back and sides, pulling it off in quarters. Jak's immediate thought was that it was a very sharp knife the guard used, and he wondered where he could get one. It would be helpful, he was sure of it, though at that moment he wasn't exactly sure why.

His tunic was taken away and the guards both stepped back. Green flared at the base of the chair and it was the light that brought Jak back to himself; the chair legs were set into indentations on the ground, he realized, through which circulated green eco. It ran up fine wood wiring—he had never seen wooden wire before, but that was what the designs on the metal chair were—and channeled into the soles of his feet, his palms, and his back where it pressed against the chair. Why were they pumping him full of green eco if—

They were going to shower him in dark eco. The green eco was constantly circulating through him to keep him alive. He wished fleetingly that he hadn't gleaned so much knowledge of eco from Samos, at least that way he could be horrified without the knowledge of exactly why all these things were being done.

"Bring it down."

That was the Captain. Jak's head shot up to face the man just as the massive glass cylinder he had seen earlier came down over him, cutting him off from the tattooed man and his guards. He heard a hiss as hydraulics set to work bringing up a rubber seal on either side of the glass, making sure that not a particle of the horrid black liquid could leach out. Another hiss, more distant, signaled that the same had happened above.

Machinery began to hum, and the familiar sound of liquid running through pipes—a sound Jak had only ever heard in conjunction with irrigation—reached the youth's pointed ears. He ground his teeth and clenched his eyes shut as the sound grew louder, drawing nearer and nearer, and at last progressed into a singing hiss as it began to rain.

The green eco around him flared as the black eco hit; he threw his head back, eyes wide and frenzied, mouth open wide and breath heaving in near-silence as the liquid flowed over his bare skin. It burned and froze and tasted like electricity and death and light, smelled like blood and destruction and _power_, oh the power—but no, the green doused the black and the pain and power faded, only for the sensation to return almost instantly. Burn—freeze—light—death—blood—_power_. The power sent a shudder through the youth, bringing all his senses to a level of clarity he had never felt before, but in an instant they dulled once more as the green eco went to work. Then it was back, so great and so terrible it brought tears to his eyes and tore a silent scream from his throat.

He didn't see it, but the Captain smiled as he watched.

**OOOOOOOO**

When Jak came to he found himself laying down, and realized instantly that he was not alone. Voices that were vaguely familiar but not quite within his ability to place reached his ears, barely audible over the ringing in his skull.

"All that and nothing?" A gruff voice, worn and aged, ragged.

"Nothing, sir." This one was higher, smoother, more recent in the youth's memory. "No changes, no severely adverse side effects—he didn't even make a sound through the entire treatment!"

Jak opened one eye and tilted his head to the side, realizing suddenly that he was strapped to a table. He winced at the metal in contact with his skin—he knew it should have simply felt cold, the bands were molded to have no sharp edges, but the contact was painful. He was reminded on the burns he sustained when he stumbled over toward the Fire Canyon in his youth and been scalded by the superheated air; his entire body had been red for weeks, and even the slightest brush against his skin was enough to bring tears of pain to his eyes.

This felt worse.

He ground his teeth and focused on laying completely still; listening intently to the voices. The younger one was the Captain, he was sure of that, and the older one much have been the man who called himself Baron Praxis. Baron—that was interesting. Jak had heard of Barons and the like in stories Samos and his uncle told when he was little, but he was under the impression they only existed in those stories.

This Praxis character, whoever or whatever he was, was frighteningly calm as he leaned over the wounded youth, a slight smirk curling his lips. "Awake?"

Jak remained still, eyes closed, but could hear Praxis' breathing over him, feel the shifts in the air as the Baron moved. A fingernail scraped along Jak's forehead and he ground his teeth in pain, breath ragged as he drew it.

The Baron pulled back and the pain faded slowly, leaving Jak to let out a long –and nearly silent—sigh of relief. Praxis' eye narrowed. "Still quiet. Are you just stubborn, boy?"

Jak looked up at the man and forced a smirk, eyes narrowing in challenge.

Praxis and the youth stared each other down for a long moment, and Jak felt a swell of triumph when the Baron turned away first, facing the Captain. "Run some more tests, do what you have to do. I'll be back to check on him tomorrow."

**OOOOOOOO**

To put it bluntly, Jak felt like shit. Not long ago he never would have even thought the word—that was Daxter's job, he was the profane one—but that was the perfect term for how the young elf felt at the exact moment. According to the Captain, who Jak had learned just a week ago was called Erol, he would be changing treatment types soon. The other subjects had started dying off at a faster rate lately, leaving Jak to be Praxis' favorite. He had been limited to the shower for the last several months—how many, he couldn't say—but today he was being moved to a different cell for a new treatment, and it had been only an hour since his last shower.

So, he felt like shit.

His skin didn't burn right after a shower anymore, and he rarely if ever passed out, but it still hurt like he couldn't describe. On occasion, though, he would find himself hoping his next treatment would be soon, if only so he could feel that surge of power again. It was more than a little addictive, and he was beginning to understand what it had done to Gol and Maia, why they had gone to such lengths to control it. To be able to control such power would be enough to make Jak feel like a god and he knew it. He feared the certain insanity that waited for him at the end of this road.

Was this what had happened to Gol? He had grown addicted to the power that dark eco granted him, if only in flashes and fragments, and sought to control it completely, thereby bringing about not only his own destruction, but madness such as the world had never seen?

Jak had begun to wonder if it was an attempt to harness dark eco that had destroyed the Precursors.

The door creaked as it was opened and he lifted his head, reaching up to brush back and errant lock of green and yellow hair. It had grown out considerably since his capture, now long enough to brush his shoulders when he moved and considerably messier than he would have liked. He wished they would at least give him back the _strap_ for his goggles, so he could use it to keep his hair out of his face. Or cut his hair. Or _something_ to make this living hell a little less…annoying. He wasn't by any means expecting them to make him comfortable, but if he ended up with his hair in his face much longer he knew he'd be going insane much quicker.

"So how's the strong silent type doing today?"

Jak glared up at Captain Erol for all he was worth, lips sealed tight.

"We go back some of your tests from the lab today," the man continued, hissing like he always did. "They tell me that your vocal cords are atrophied. How did that happen?"

He shrugged.

Erol tilted his head. "So all this time we've thought you were holding your tongue, playing it tough, when actually you're…" Jak winced in preparation for the word. "You're _dumb_?"

He hated that word. Loathed it. It wasn't his fault he didn't have a voice, he had nothing to do with it. He had always been like this. There was no reason to use a term that had long ago come to mean stupid to describe his condition. Just because he couldn't talk didn't mean he couldn't speak; Daxter, Keira, Samos and the villagers of Sandover understood him perfectly.

Erol came closer, leaning over the young man and folding his arms over his armored chest. "Looks like I touched on a nerve there. Don't like being called dumb?"

Jak ground his teeth and something flared in his chest, giving a surge of strength he hadn't been expecting and a flare of rage he hadn't known he was holding back. He lunged up from his cot and tackled the Captain. Electricity crackled behind his teeth and purple flared in his eyes, blinding him for an instant as his rage took control.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the strength was gone and Erol had thrown him off, slamming a knee into his midsection as he rose and turning his foot to kick the youth in face as soon as he hit the floor.

Jak knew there would be bruises, no amount of green eco would be able to heal away bruises created so soon after such severe trauma as a dark eco shower, and didn't want to think about the abrasions that would go with them. If he was forced into another shower with broken skin…

That had happened once; his third treatment. He hadn't woken up for two days after the oily violet-black liquid came in contact with the abrasions. He could only guess it was because of direct contact with his blood or something equally odd, but regardless of why he had been unconscious for so long the thought still made him wince.

Erol glared down at him, running a gloved hand over his cheek. Jak was more than surprised to see not a bruise but claw marks marring his tattooed features. The wounds were sharp and fine, like a wild cat had struck at his face. He brought his hand down and stared at the sticky crimson on his glove for a long moment.

Then, dropping his bloodied hand to his side and baring the smear across his face, he hissed out an order. "Get up and follow me. I have something special for you today."

**OOOOOOOO**

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	3. For Great Harm or Great Good

**Author's Note/WARNING: **This chapter contains implications of rape, thus the rating has gone up. This is a dark story, if you don't think you can handle the implied events featured here then you should probably read something else. If you don't mind, though, please feel free to comment on anything. Constructive criticism is especially appreciated.

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**Three: For Great Harm or Great Good**

The coppery sheen of the metal, not to mention the rounded shape, triggered an instant recognition of Precursor technology. Nowhere else had Jak seen such strange designs, and he knew no one else was capable of fashioning metal into such smooth and calm shapes.

However, the object in question—Precursor or not—was anything but calming to his eyes. The hard copper topped a translucent funnel-like apparatus, from which ran a thin tube. The tube itself met an equally see-through sphere of the same material, from which ran a second, thinner tube, ending in what could only be a needle. The youth's brow furrowed in confusion as Erol took the bizarre object from one of his subordinates and, holding it close to his midsection as though afraid to break it, walked into the room Jak had been shoved into only a moment before.

"Do you know what this is?" the yellow-eyed man inquired, holding the Precursor object carefully in one hand and stretching his arm out to give Jak a better look. The Captain held the object out a little further and rocked it forward in his hand, gesturing for the youth to take it.

Jak reached out and took it without hesitation. He remembered Samos' and Keira's words from months before regarding Precursor artifacts—they could cause great harm or great good, depending on how one knew to use them. If he could somehow figure out how to use this thing—or even what it was—then maybe he could make it do something good instead of the terribly harmful thing he was certain the Captain had in mind.

The top was warm to the touch, like all Precursor metal; the funnel the metal lidded was cold, but just as familiar in texture. The funnel was glass, not metal. His brow furrowed in confusion—the only Precursor glass he had ever seen was in the refraction lenses back in Forbidden Jungle, and it was different than this. It had been thick and perfectly smooth, not ridged like this was. This was more similar to the glass in Samos' spectacles, or the kind Keira used in her machines. This thing was a mingling of elf and Precursor technology, and it made his stomach lurch. The last time he had seen anything combined with the work of the ancients was in Gol and Maia's Citadel, and it had not been pretty.

He understood, without even trying to figure what the needle at the end of the strange tube was for, that there was no way for him to make good something that had been twisted by the hands of someone determined only to hurt.

Erol reached out both hands, placing one on the top of the apparatus and one on the bottom, barely brushing over Jak's knuckles as he took the thing back. Jak shied away from the contact—he wanted as little to do with this man as possible, and that included physical contact. He had suffered through plenty enough of his blows since he was captured to know that any meeting of his skin and Erol's ended in pain.

"You have no idea what this is, do you?" Jak didn't move to show yes or no, but the look on the Captain's face proved he didn't need to. "You're dreadfully simple, aren't you?" He walked toward the cot fixed to the wall and leaned over, fiddling with a light-covered panel affixed to the wall, particularly with the shiny black gem set into the left side of the surface.

After a moment of Erol's prying, what Jak had thought to be a gem revealed itself as something quite different. A copper tube emerged from the wall, headed by a convex disc of glass—what the youth had thought was a stone of some sort was in fact a window to look into the tube. The metal was clearly Precursor, but it lacked the distinguishing designs Jak had always associated with their work. He wondered if these people had somehow found a way to temper Precursor metal.

Very quickly all thoughts regarding the abilities of his captors were banished. The glass that tipped the tube from within the wall began to shimmer, flickering violet and pink and yellow, and though Jak couldn't bring himself to widen his eyes in shock he still felt that same seizing in his chest he had felt the first moment he saw that surging liquid. It felt like years ago that he and Daxter had leaned over the exposed pool of dark eco, and to this day Jak could never wish hard enough they had never gone to Misty Island.

If they hadn't, nothing would have happened to Daxter. They wouldn't have been pulled into facing Gol and Maia's plot. They would never have found that ring, that Gate, and Jak wouldn't have found himself here.

Likewise, however, if they hadn't gone they never would have _known_ of Gol and Maia's plot, never been able to face them, never found such a great artifact as that precious Gate, never allowed Keira to learn as much about Precursor technology as she did from it.

In the end, the good always outweighed the bad. If he had managed to save the world, even make it better, then he suppose some torture wasn't that bad.

But he _really_ didn't like the look of that pipe.

Erol removed a glove and, using his fingernails, drew out two fine lines of copper from the top of the funnel lid. These he hooked, somehow, into the metal pipe filled with dark eco. Instantly drops of purple-black liquid began to run into the funnel and through the tube attached to it. After allowing the device to hang by the wires linking it to pipe, the Captain bent the tube around his fingers and kinked it to keep the fluid from leaking. After checking the gauges—Jak assumed the lights and dials on the wall were gauges—he turned and smiled at Jak.

"Still have no idea what this is?" He gestured to the funnel. A mere second passed with no replying motion before he sighed in exasperation and shook his head. "This device will deliver dark eco directly to your system intravenously. The showers aren't working, so we're going to try a more direct approach."

With his free hand he took hold of the end of the tube, placing one finger against the needlelike object at the end, and Jak's eyes widened as comprehension dawned.

The fight was short. The youth was already exhausted and in pain, so the guards had little trouble pinning him to the cot and strapping him down while Erol himself was given the task of inserting the needle into his hand. It was just a pinprick at first, of course, but as soon as Erol affixed the needle in place—using some sort of adhesive strips made of the same material as the tube—and let go, the dark eco began its swift trip down the line and throw the hollow needle, straight into Jak's bloodstream.

Though it was silent save for the sound of his thrashing and gasping for breath, Erol could tell Jak was screaming.

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak had no idea how much time had passed when he awoke, but he could assume it had been a fair amount. His head hurt like he couldn't describe and not a single part of his body didn't throb with a dull ache.

He sat up slowly, almost surprised that he wasn't still restrained but not quite coherent enough to register such a feeling, and found the movement of his left hand impeded. Turning to see what he had caught it on the youth stared for several seconds at the needle driven into his skin and the tube connecting to it. He wondered if he should take it out, keep it from channeling any more of this filthy stuff into him.

There was no telling how long it had been running, though—he could very well be dependent on the dark eco to survive now. He knew Gol had been, but he had no idea how long the twisted man had exposed himself to it. Likewise, if he removed it he knew it would just bring another beating from Erol and the inevitable reinsertion of the hollow needle. There was no point in taking it out.

His brow furrowed. Was he giving up? Had he finally caved in to the pressure and decided that it wasn't worth the trouble to fight back?

Jak narrowed his eyes, grinding his teeth. No, he hadn't given up—he wouldn't give up. Daxter was doing everything he could to get the elf out, Keira and Samos were looking for him; he was missed. He had to keep fighting, for their sake if not for his.

Erol and Praxis would not expect him to keep fighting. The thought of their reactions when he eventually escaped—and he would escape—brought a smile to the youth's features. He clenched both hands into fists and set his jaw, determined to keep fighting, to keep hope, and to be the one that finally got rid of those two. He had come to think of them as his adversaries, archenemies for him to take down.

He had killed Gol and he had killed Maia, elves that had been twisted by the taint of dark eco. Now he was going to kill Praxis and Erol, elves that were responsible for tainting _him_ with that same substance.

Electricity crackled around him and he jerked at the sensation. His eyes widened and his thoughts fell once again to dazed confusion; what had he been telling himself? His entire body hurt, he couldn't think straight enough to tell himself anything.

And yet…

Blue eyes narrowed and he shook his head to clear it, leaning back on one hand and holding the other to his head. He really couldn't remember anything, except that he was angry. Angry and in pain of so many kinds. He was alone.

In his current position, lost in thought, he didn't notice that the violet bar on the metal panel set into the wall jumped three levels, nor that the skin on his left hand—needle still channeling dark eco into his bloodstream—shifted to a pale blue-tinted hue.

**OOOOOOOO**

"Ah, welcome back!" Erol said with a smirk, yellow eyes narrowing. "I was starting to worry we'd lost you to the IV." In his hand he held several sheets of paper—though it was whiter and the edges straighter than Jak had ever seen—and he surveyed them as thoughtfully as he did the youth when he lifted his gaze. "The last man we had hooked to the IV didn't stop screaming for a week after we started a drip. With _you _we started a full flow, and you're up and aware in a month and a half. I'm almost proud."

Jak, held at the arms by two of the older man's "Crimson Guards," spat at the older man's feet. The guards jerked him backward as Erol surged toward him, wrapping his free hand around the youth's neck and slamming his head against the wall.

Erol glared down at the youth, smirk never leaving his lips. "I got permission to do something special, you know. Something I think you'll appreciate. And this is how you repay me?" His yellow eyes narrowed and he leaned in closer, his forehead brushing against Jak's. "You should be on your knees in front of me, thanking me for what I've given you."

Jak carefully worked at the tape on his hand, drawing out the needle in his skin as Erol spoke. When the Captain finished the youth turned the needle in his hands and jammed it deep into the older man's midsection. This, he thought, would be his thanks.

Erol cried out and jerked backward, giving Jak a moment to attempt some escape. The instant, of course, was not enough—the Captain reached out with one hand and caught the youth by his hair, using the youth's matted mane to throw him up against the wall. The tattooed man gave an angry, hungry grimace, placing one hand against Jak's chest to hold him back, and leaned in so close his forehead brushed the boy's.

"You have no idea what you're trying to do, boy. This is a gift that we're giving you—you are going to be the weapon that saves this city. You should be grateful." He glanced over his shoulder at the guards standing at the ready outside the door and made a gesture for the guards to leave.

The door slid shut, and Jak felt a surge of fear.

Erol turned back to his captive. "I'm going to make you grateful for what we've done—make you glad that I hadn't gone this far." His hand slid down Jak's chest and the other came up to cup the boy's chin. "I'm going to make you scream this time, boy, scream so hard your body remembers how to speak. And this time it's my name you'll be screaming."

Jak, understanding with such clarity that he knew he had been in this place too long, clenched his eyes shut and waited for the pain to come.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	4. The Dark Place Inside

**Author's Note:** Special thanks go out to my inner for rescuing my story from Erol in this chapter. Really, you don't want to know what Crazy Ginger wanted to do in this one—lucky for me Vin was there!

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**Four: The Dark Place Inside**

It had been a week since Erol last came to see him, and Jak was more than grateful. There was nothing he wanted more than to never seen that disgusting man ever again, never feel his fingers on his face, never have him close enough to smell, so close it made the youth want to retch.

He knew he was past due for a visit from the Captain, though, and dreaded the moment when the man would walk through the door and offer him another reason to be grateful to be a part of this.

"_Scream for me. Scream." _

Jak shuddered at the memory, a chill seeping into his skin as he wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to banish the cold. This frozen sensation came from inside, though, deep inside—somewhere Jak never wanted to be again, a place within his spirit where something dark and twisted waited to be let loose. The place he had hidden while Erol taught him to be grateful.

There was something else there, besides his own anger and confusion. Something chaotic and terrible, something that tasted like darkness. He could feel it when he slept and taste it when he breathed, hear it when there was silence and see it when he cried. He reached up to wipe a hand over his eyes, grinding his teeth to fight back the tears; he was a hero, a warrior, he wasn't supposed to cry…

That dark thing within him whispered that all he ever did was cry, that there was nothing he could do to fight back so long as he pretended he was still clean. He hadn't been clean since he came here, since the first of his treatments—as soon as he accepted the fact that he was filthy, that no one would ever want to touch him again once they found out what had been done to him, he would be able to take down both Praxis and Erol.

He hated Erol more than he had ever hated anyone—in fact, Jak felt that this was the first time had ever actually _hated _at all—but it was because of Praxis' orders that the Captain was in a position of power that allowed him to run mad like he did. If he killed Praxis, then Erol would lose his claim to power and Jak would be free.

The Captain was filthy, a disgusting man who had no right to breathe the same air as even Gol or Maia, but it was Praxis that gave him his power. It was Praxis that allowed him to be a murderer, a torturer…a rapist.

Jak shuddered and fought the urge to gag, focusing his thoughts. Kill Praxis, remove Erol from a position of power. If he could just do those simple things everything would be all right again. Everything would go back to how it had been before.

The door hissed and slid open, and when Jak lifted his head blue eyes met yellow.

Erol grinned, a predatory expression that made Jak want to run away as fast as he could, screaming with all the strength his atrophied vocal cords would allow. "Praxis was starting to ask about why I wasn't visiting you as much as I used to; I'd hate for him to get suspicious." He stepped into the room and Jak realized that he was alone. A week ago he might have taken that fact as an opportunity, but now it made his blood run cold.

The older man shuffled through the papers he held—he always seemed to come in carrying paperwork of some sort—and chewed his bottom lip thoughtfully as he read over the one he had been looking for. "You're seventeen, correct?"

Jak's eyes narrowed, a little confused, and apparently Erol took that as an affirmation.

"Tiny, too. I wonder why you're so short." Erol marked something down on the paper. His tone had changed to one of a man who was strictly business—today Erol was not here for his own enjoyment, and that allowed the youth to relax slightly. "We took your weight last week, that shouldn't have changed…much…" His eyes narrowed. "Although I do wonder where you came from, it isn't really necessary knowledge for this procedure." He chuckled, raking a hand through his fiery-colored hair; Jak realized that the man had apparently opted not to wear his helmet today, and that made him tense. The only other time he had seen him without his helmet was last week, when he—

Jak forced down the memory, determined to block it as much as possible without losing the anger and humiliation it left behind. The intense emotions would be a valuable asset when he finally faced Praxis. He needed this rage to remind him why he was willing to kill another elf, a man untouched by the twisting darkness Gol had toyed with.

"Then again," Erol continued, chuckle trailing off, "we don't really know what _is _necessary for most of these treatments. Trial and error, you know."

Jak knew, probably better than anyone, how correct that phrase was. For the first time since his initial shower he responded to Erol's words with a short nod, averting his eyes.

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak blinked at the middle-aged man standing before him, confused in _so_ many ways. Apparently the older man was equally as bewildered, because he turned his goggle-eyed gaze from Jak to Erol, the latter of whom was currently smiling for all he was worth.

"W-What's all this?" the unnamed man inquired, a slight stutter in his voice and twitch to his features. The youth observing him wondered how old he was, and settled on late thirties—certainly not old enough to have those streaks of white and grey through his light brown hair, the lack of lines on his face and the youth in his voice proved that much—but the way he moved made Jak wonder just what this bizarre man had seen in his lifetime.

For some reason, though, Jak was reminded of a sage when he looked at the older man. There was an aura of knowledge, of understanding about him that was all too familiar to the youth. He had a feeling that this bizarre man and Samos would get along wonderfully, and for some reason that made him feel better.

This man, apparently, was yet another of Praxis' workers, just another lackey like Erol, but Jak felt safer looking at this sage-not-sage from over Erol's shoulder than he had since he fell into this bizarre place so long ago. There was something in him that was simply _good_, and Jak could feel it strongly among the evil all around him.

"This," Erol replied, "is precisely why I needed your assistance."

The sage shook his head, reaching up to pull up his goggles and show ice-blue eyes. "N-N-No, you s-said that it was an _experiment_. This is a p-prisoner." He gestured at the tunic Jak had been presented, emblazoned with scarlet characters, and the numbered cuffs on his wrists. Then his pale eyes narrowed, confusion flitting over his too-weathered features. "And a young one, t-too. W-What did he d-do?"

Erol shook his head in dismissal at the sage's inquiry. "He's helping the Baron with an experiment." His grin darkened. "A few of them, actually. But we're having some problems." The blue-eyed older man cocked his head to one side and his goggles began to slide back down his forehead. "You see, we know that green eco is the most restorative material on the planet, but we _also _know that dark eco can mimic those effects at an accelerated rate, if left in contact with green for long enough."

Jak didn't like where this was going, and gave the sage a furtive glance.

The sage, however, gave a simple nod to the Captain. "Y-Yes, that's true. But why a-are you t-t-talking to me about this?"

"Because we were wondering whether it would be possible to…say…jump-start certain parts of the body that weren't working properly using the green-treated dark eco. Any ideas?"

"W-Why do y-you want to know?"

"You sure are asking a lot of questions today," Erol said, his yellow eyes narrowing slightly, grin faltering.

The sage gave a twitch and his mouth worked silently for a moment. "I-I'm just c-curious, Erol. Th-That's all…"

"Like I said, we're doing some studies," the Captain waved one hand, looking at the papers in his hand. "Now I know Precursor technology is your specialty, but seeing as I know you minored in Eco Studies the Baron thought it would be best to consult you about this one."

Jak mentally labeled the man the Sage of Precursor Technology at Erol's words; if this place had sages, he was certain that this strange stuttering man would be one of them. The presence of a person similar to the sages from back home was comforting to the youth.

At least until he remembered that Gol Acheron had been a sage.

The man shook his head slightly. "W-Why not one of the e-e-eco technicians?"

Erol sighed, and Jak wondered where this version of the Captain had come from. He was civil, even decent—so different from the maniac Jak had grown accustomed to. This was a mask, certainly, one of the many Jak had seen him wear. He was a lunatic when alone with Jak, a loyal subject when in the presence of Praxis, and apparently a decent person when speaking with the Technology Sage. Which one, the youth wondered, was the real Erol? In the end, when he was at last removed from his position of power and Praxis was dead, what would be left? "There are no more eco techs," he explained, his tone mildly apologetic. "The Baron did a…personnel cut, remember?"

The older man nodded slowly, wincing slightly, and Jak wondered what exactly was meant by the phrase. Judging by the Technology Sage's reaction it was considerably worse an act than the youth normally associated with such words. Knowing Praxis, a personnel cut meant slicing his workers to pieces and throwing the remains out for the Lurkers.

"I-It should work, I th-think." The sage's eyes narrowed further and the goggles at last slid back into place, though he didn't seem to notice. "The best way to make sure make sure the treatment takes to whatever subject you're working on would be to give it a bit more kick, maybe an infusion of blue eco—not red, that would do more damage in conjunction with dark eco than it does on its own—yellow might work too—the best way to combine the three types would probably be in something similar to a power core on a smaller scale, although a direct injection might work too—" He broke off, quirking an eyebrow. "H-Hey, w-w-why do you need to know?" His stutter had returned with full force, and once again Jak wondered what kind of trauma he had been through. "Y-You aren't actually going t-to _try_ it, are you?"

Erol looked back up from the papers to the professor. "Thank you very much, that's all the information we needed." He turned around, grabbing Jak by the cuff on his right wrist and pulling him along behind as they left the room.

The youth looked over his shoulder and dared to mouth two simple words, words he was incapable of speaking aloud but longed to scream. _Help me._

The sage's eyes widened behind his goggles and he took a step back, lowered his head and gave a whisper. "I-I'm sorry," he murmured, just loud enough for Jak to hear. "I can't."

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak was torn between struggling as the guards strapped him down to the table, fighting back yet again, or simply allowing them to do their jobs and steeling himself for whatever new torture Erol had devised. It had something to do with using dark eco as a healing substance, he knew that much from Erol's conversation with the Technology Sage, but beyond that the youth had no idea what was happening.

He settled on elbowing one guard in the face—mask, rather, though at least these masks were face-like—and letting the other strap him in. A severely dysfunctional medium, of course, but Jak had no other choice. No matter what he did Erol would just beat him and throw him back in his cell—or maybe even a new one, with a new treatment, if he felt angry enough—and Praxis would try to devise some better way of making the youth comply to their demands.

Once he was strapped down completely—and after a hard blow to the skull from the guard he had hit—Erol's men left. The Captain leaned over his prisoner, looking him up and down while his fingers toyed absently with a narrow silver blade. "We have to wait a bit before the fun can start," Erol explained with a smirk. "The Baron said he wanted to be here to watch this one."

Great. If _Praxis_ wanted to watch, then this was sure to be hellish. It might even kill him—the Baron had a habit of complaining that Jak wasn't dead at the end of any intense treatment. Every time he was present for a regimen he would inevitably shout in the boy's ear about how he should at least be dead by now, and every time Jak wished he could have fulfilled the man's expectations.

Jak heard the door slide open, and his stomach lurched when the familiar limping footsteps of Praxis registered in his memory. It was odd, but he had never wondered what had robbed the aging man of his eye—half his face, even—and his ability to walk properly. It had just never crossed Jak's mind to wonder.

Now though, as before every treatment, Jak's mind raced through the inane, random questions and speculations ricocheting around his skull until they formed a none-too-pleasant hum between his ears. Under the hum another voice, another thought whispered, taunted Jak's weakness and flaunted its own strength. It whispered of the tortures he had already suffered, kindled a rage within him that burned his insides until he wanted to scream.

He clenched his hands into fists, grinding his teeth, but the whisper only strengthened. It told him of Sandover, of the terror he had unleashed when he activated that massive Precursor Ring. It told him what those shimmering black creatures did to the villagers, one by one; how they crawled through the Fire Canyon and tasted the people of Rock Village with their claws and their smiles…

"I see you're still alive."

Jak had never been grateful for Praxis' presence before, but as he opened his blue eyes ands stared dazedly up at the Baron he wanted to smile in gratitude. Praxis had spoken, and words from the outside silenced—or at least dulled—the whispering inside.

The Baron turned and looked at the Captain. "Mind explaining to me what good this will do our project?"

Erol's grin turned smug, eyes half-lidded as he spoke. "What good is a warrior that can't shout orders? Or better yet," he lifted the slender knife again, the light catching on the short blade, "what good is a monster that can't growl?" He handed Praxis the knife. "Intimidation is nine-tenths of the battle, Baron Praxis. Without that this is pointless."

The older man looked down at the knife and his eye narrowed slightly. "This is all starting to feel pointless."

"You'll see, Baron. Just give us some more time," he gave a bow of his head. "After this we can change to another treatment method."

Praxis sighed and nodded, turning back to Jak. "Are we going to put him under first?"

Erol smiled. "He'll pass out eventually, it doesn't really matter."

The Baron nodded again, leaning closer to the youth. "So, little boy, ready to scream?"

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	5. Dirty Miracle

**Author's Note:** Sorry this chapter took so long, and is so frekkin' _short_. It was hard to write--there's some trippy stuff happening here, and if you can understand what it all means I'll be very impressed. Then again, if you can figure out what it means then you'll probably be more disturbed than you were before.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Five: Dirty Miracle**

It hurt. Jak had expected it to hurt, of course, but he hadn't expected it to hurt like this. This was real, tangible, the kind of pain he'd known since he was a kid, the kind that flared when he sliced his foot open on a shell down by the beach and throbbed when he scraped his knee chasing Daxter down the rocky hills toward the jungle. This was different pain than he had felt in ages.

This was pain that he had kept clean, pain that reminded him of home, of happy times and a life untainted by darkness. Of a world before Lurkers and Dark Eco and killing and fighting and knowing that you have to keep going or everything you've ever loved is going to die.

Erol made the first slice on the side of Jak's neck with the bizarre knife, and Jak felt the blood well up as it moved, flow down his skin when the blade was pulled away. He felt Erol's fingers brush the edge of the gash and the youth bit his bottom lip to keep from crying.

The cuts were clean, methodical, not at all like the memories he associated with this sort of hurt, but somehow the sensation was so familiar those memories were forever tainted. He would never be able to think about skin broken by something other than the hands of his tormentors, never even have one memory left that they hadn't twisted, distorted with this…this _evil_.

Whatever it was they were doing to him, whatever they hoped to gain, was pure unadulterated evil. Not because they were doing it of their own free will, not because Jak couldn't help but loath them for doing this to him, not because they continued day after day.

Because they smiled while they worked.

There were no words to describe how horrendously wrong it all went once they started smiling.

"There now, this'll only hurt for a minute…" Erol cooed, smirking, yellow eyes narrowed. "Just a pinprick." Something cold—metal—pressed against the slice in Jak's neck and, sure enough, there was that pinprick Erol had warned him about.

Then there was a flood of heat up and down his throat, a flare of violet behind his eyes, then he felt the world spin all around him and everything went black, he slipped and tilted and was failing, falling, falling…

He heard Erol chuckle as he fell.

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak was safe. He sat atop a great dark eco silo, strapped down against the warm Precursor metal, a tube running from the small circular disk where the two halves of the seal met into his mouth. Somehow, though, he was safe.

Daxter stood up from his place beside him and reassured his best friend with that bucktoothed grin that he was all right. The light caught on his red hair and made his skin seem even paler than it normally was, and for some reason Jak was more worried about his friend than himself.

'Dax,' he mouthed, motion blunted by the thick tube in his mouth. He wished he could talk, wished he could actually speak his nickname for the redhead aloud where no one else would. _Dax, what are you doing?_ He thought, knowing that his comrade would be able to read it in his eyes.

The smaller elf waved off the question. "Don't worry, buddy, everythin's gonna be okay. Just hold still."

'Dax?'

"Don't try to move, Jak," Daxter warned. "If you move things'll fall apart."

'Dax, how did you get changed back?' he formed the words with his lips, fighting to spit out the tube so Daxter could read them. 'What happened?'

Suddenly Dax was crouched beside him, holding in his long-fingered hand a slim silver knife; long handle, short blade. "This'll only hurt for a minute," he said with a grin. "Just a pinprick."

**OOOOOOOO**

The walls were laughing. A high-pitched chirp that sounded with such frequency it must have been laughter, a giggle from the metal plating all around him. Sometimes there were words, too—entire phrases spoken out of the walls, questions and requests and threats that he didn't understand.

"Can you tell me your name?"

He swatted at the yellow lights that hovered in the air before him, golden twins haloed by a haze of ivory and grey, a shock of fire above and an expanse of ocean below. A cavern parted, flashing white, and a warm breeze issued from the gap in time with the noise.

"Can you tell me anything?"

He pressed his knees to his chest and looked away, violet flickering all around him, tiny explosions in the air—or in his eyes—that left a rancid taste in his mouth—or in his head—and then fading like Samos' Eco Fireworks from the days back in Sandover.

He missed Sandover. He wished it would come back. What had he done to make it go away, again? Oh yes, that flash of white light had scared it and it fled, leaving him alone…

Alone? No, there were others. At least one. An explosion of scarlet and orange and yellow, like fire but soft, with matching spheres of white and blue and shimmers of silvery metal amid the cacophony of color.

But the other one had gone, and he was alone now. The flash of color that had been with him as long as he could recall had been replaced by this questioning mess that floated before him.

"Can you tell me anything at all?"

He closed his eyes, took a sharp breath that hurt like daggers in his lungs.

"No."

The explosion of color laughed.

**OOOOOOOO**

How long it had been, Jak couldn't say. A long time, he assumed—judging from the speed of the beeping that sounded from the panel set into the wall. Sitting up with a shudder, trying shove away nasty, _nasty _visions he looked at the panel and his brow furrowed. For some reason the light display seemed brighter. The beeping, which had only sounded every half hour or so before Erol's newest treatment was sounding every second on the dot.

He looked down at the IV taped to his hand and, without thinking about it, removed it. The beeping stopped, but the light from the display continued to bother him. He rose up to a crouch and made his way over to the panel. There were little notches on the top and bottom of the metal surrounding the screen, and using these he gauged the levels of eco in his system. Green, five notches; red, two notches; blue, six notches; yellow, one notch; purple—

His stomach lurched.

Taking a breath he closed his eyes, opened them and counted again. Purple, ten notches. The full length of the display. Shaking, he lifted both hands and pressed them to the screen, as if by touching the display he could convince it to say that it was lying, that there wasn't really that much dark eco in his system, that this was a dream just like seeing Daxter. The lights didn't move.

He clenched his eyes shut and slumped forward against the wall, forehead brushing glass and cold metal as he slid, and he choked back a sob. At that he jerked upright again, tears in his eyes freezing as his blood ran cold.

Something had changed.

He reached up and put a hand to his neck, feeling fine lines of scar tissue on either side, where Erol had cut him—scar tissue? How long had he been unconscious?—and taking a steadying breath.

_Oh, Precursors …_

Jak closed his eyes and opened his mouth, carefully siphoning the air out of his lungs, through parts of his throat he could barely remember ever using. What emerged was a ragged plea, a cracked sound that was so unfamiliar it was frightening.

"How…?"

Jak snapped his mouth shut so hard there was click when his teeth snapped against each other. He held his other hand to his neck and tightened the grip of his fingers, holding so tightly it hurt. His eyes were wide with shock and something bordering on disgust, blue depths completely blank as the reality sunk in.

That was a word. _Sound_. From _Jak_.

Because of Praxis. Because of Erol. Because of what they, drunk on their own power, had done to him.

He could speak.

Sinking back down onto his cot, hands still circling his neck, Jak went limp as a rag doll. This was something he had always wanted, something he had wished for over and over again in his youth, something he researched once Samos taught him to read, something that he had long ago deemed impossible. He had a voice, a voice that _everyone _could hear, a voice that could form real words without the assistance of hand gestures or expression.

And yet with that realization, with his first spoken word, he lost all hope. Even his dreams, his wishes and hopes and determination, belonged to Praxis and Erol. His fear and his pain had already been stolen, but now any chance for joy over this gift, this miracle, was lost amidst the understanding that it was from _them_.

He clenched his fingers tightly about his neck, felt his nails dig into the skin. He could tear himself open, end everything once and for all. This time he could save himself rather than the world.

Jak didn't see the skin on his hands fade out to blue-tinted white, but he felt the black claws slide out of his fingers and into his throat. Whatever they had done to him, whatever transformation they were attempting to trigger with their experiments, it wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't let it.

He tightened his grip, felt claws scrape his trachea, and then squeezed with all his might.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	6. Being a Hero

**Author's Note: Notes:** Overall this chapter is a filler, a lead-up to Jak's first assessment; although it does have a slightly better look into other facets of Erol's insanity, and mention of Vin. It's also the second-longest chapter of this fic, at just over six pages it's barely shorter than chapter four. Also, there's another CV picture up on my devART page—nashidesei(dot)deviantart(dot)com—if anyone's interested.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Six: Being a Hero**

Jak felt more than saw Erol burst into the room, clenched his eyes shut as the man practically tackled him, sitting on his chest and pulling at the youth's bloodied hands. "What are you thinking!" he hollered. "Stop this nonsense _right now_."

"Why?" Jak choked, giving a cynical smirk. "What's the point?"

Erol made one final tug and pulled the boy's hands free—Jak felt claws recede as they were pulled from his flesh and wondered if Erol had even noticed their presence. Then the Captain of the Guard reached for something on his belt, uncorked it, poured it over his plaything's neck. He looked frantic, worried, and Jak was more confused by his masks at that moment than ever before. Why should Erol be worried about him? He was just a toy, an experiment. The man had no reason to care about his wellbeing…

The fluid hit, and Jak screamed for the first time.

It _burned_, sizzled against his skin and muscle as it flowed into the ten matching wounds on his neck, pulling strings of flesh together in hesitant, erratic motions. The smell was familiar, too familiar.

Since when did green eco hurt this much?

He ground his teeth and clenched his eyes shut, tears of pain running from the corners. Erol pulled back, rose to remove himself from his perch on the young warrior's chest, and gave a sigh of relief even as Jak felt the pain at his neck dissipate. The blond reached up again to touch his neck, but this time Erol reached out and held his hands back.

"Not this time, Jak," he whispered, yellow eyes narrowed in nothing short of rage. "You're far too costly to allow suicide. Praxis will have _my_ head if you're ever so far out of _yours_ again. What were you _thinking_?"

Jak rolled over, pushed himself up and then drew back to sit huddled on his thin pillow. He circled his legs with his arms and buried his face in his knees, willing Erol to leave him alone, just this once.

It took him a moment to realize that Erol had called him by name, but when the realization struck his stomach turned. If Erol knew his name that meant he had said it—there was no other way for them to possibly know. When had he said it? Under what circumstances? And what else had he said when revealing his name?

A memory of explosions of color and whispers from laughing walls brought a dull ache to his head. He understood he must have spoken his name at some point during that terrible mess, he could recall no words leaving his mouth.

Erol heaved another sigh. "It's for your own good, you know. All of this is for your sake, Jak."

"Don't," he whispered, clenching his eyes shut.

Erol inclined his head slightly, arching one tattooed eyebrow. "What was that?"

"Don't," Jak repeated. "Not you." The voice in his head whispered that they had his name, is memories, his voice—they had everything. Jak was completely and wholly theirs, and there was absolutely nothing he could do. Why bother fighting when there was nothing left to fight for? Even if he beat them somehow, he would never get anything back. Everything they had taken from him would always be theirs. Not even seeing Praxis dead and Erol fallen could give his life back.

The older man blinked. "I was certain you would be all right after this most recent coma," he mused. "Are you still out of your head, Jak?"

"Please don't," the youth hissed.

Erol sat down on the bed, legs over the side, elbows on his knees, and spoke softly. "Don't _what_, Jak?"

The boy flinched. "That."

The Captain of the Guard blinked, then yellow eyes lit with comprehension. "Oh…" He licked his lips and glanced sideways at the boy. "Jak?"

He gave a weak nod.

"That's your name, isn't it?"

Another nod.

When Erol spoke again his tone was soft and cajoling, almost sympathetic. At the insanity-laced false kindness in his captor's voice, Jak felt a rush of fear. Erol had been many things to him, pretended to be many things, but never once had he played nice. "You don't want me say your name?"

Jak shook his head, face still hidden by his knees.

Erol's hand brushed his head and Jak jerked backward, slamming up against the wall. "Shh," the man crooned. "It's all right." He placed his hand once more on Jak's head and ran his fingers through the boy's matted emerald-gold hair. "Tell me, why don't you want me to say your name?"

Jak took a weak and shaky breath, closing his eyes. "S-Stop it," he rasped. "Please stop it." He shied away from the older man's touch, scooting as far away as possible.

Erol came forward and settled beside him, arms folded in his lap. It was then that Jak noticed he wasn't wearing his customary uniform—that yellow and blue thing that reminded him of the pearl divers back in Rock Village—but rather a red tunic and slacks, under which Jak could see flashes of skin-tight black. His elbows and knees were covered by pads of metal and fabric, and Jak remembered the protective gear Keira had put together for him when he first tried her Zoomer.

The memory of Keira, of her smile and laugh, green eyes bright as she helped Jak to strap on the pads and put on the helmet she had fashioned from wood and metal, hurt more than anything Erol could have done intentionally.

"So, why don't you want me to call you by name?" A ribbon of darkness had struggled through to his tone, circling the mock-kindness and making Jak tense every muscle in his body.

Jak didn't want to explain it—Erol wouldn't care even if he did. Rather, he had a feeling the man would relish in knowing that the use of his name would cause such pain. So the youth kept his silence, and Erol waited only a moment more before moving, leaning in so close Jak could feel the man's breath on his face when he whispered.

"Do you honestly think your name is worth anything?"

Jak turned, eyes a little wide at the man's sudden personality change. "What—"

Erol grabbed hold of the youth's head and pushed him over the side of the bed, slamming him into the floor. "Do you think you're worth anything as you are? Anything at all?" He grinned, expression manic and voice loud. "The only thing knowing your name does for us is lets us call you a little more easily!" He pressed harder, black-gloved fingers digging into Jak's skin and tearing at his scalp. "Why, by the time we're done with you it's not likely you'll remember your name in the first place!"

Heat flared in Jak's chest and he gave a growl, surging to his feet and throwing Erol off. For the first time in what felt like forever he stared _down_ at the Captain, rage taking the forefront where fear usually settled.

"_Don't touch me_."

The voice was deep and guttural, inhuman and obviously not his own. He felt electricity run through his body, tugging at muscle and bone and flashing behind his eyes, and the dark thing in his head gave a laugh. This was fun, it declared, and it wouldn't mind continuing. It chuckled that Jak could tear out Erol's throat in less than a second if he wanted to—and didn't he want to?

It would be easy. He just had to wrap his hands around the man's neck and squeeze, let the shadows in him take control and give him claws, and then _tear_ just like he used to rip up damaged parchment in Samos' hut. Unlike the parchment fragments from days long gone, though, what he tore from Erol could not be ripped apart and then soaked and pressed to be reused.

Erol deserved it. Erol had to die, didn't he? Erol had hurt him, Erol had played with him, Erol had done everything—

Jak clenched his eyes shut, took a shaky step back, held hands to his head. "No," he rasped. He had to kill _Praxis_. Praxis, not Erol. If he killed Erol than Praxis would just find someone else, someone worse, and this nightmare would start all over again. He had to stop this infection at its source, not just clean the surface.

The voice in his head faded, muscles went slack, and he collapsed in an unconscious heap.

**OOOOOOOO**

Days later, Erol returned, this time clad in the armor of his soldiers. Apparently Jak had scared him before.

Erol spoke much but said little, as he usually did. He told Jak about the terrible things that were happening, about a war against creatures called Metalheads, about the number of people that died every day.

He smirked when he added that, of course, not all of those people were killed by Metalheads.

But it all came together into a question, spoken offhand and curiously rather than furtively and with any concern whatsoever. Erol inclined his head as he always did when he was asking a question he knew didn't really apply to the situation at hand. "When we're done, you can help them. Don't you want to help all those people? Don't you want to be a hero?"

"Not like this," the youth replied, sitting on the other side of the room with his legs to his chest and his chin on his knees. "This isn't the makings of a hero." He lifted his head, eyes narrowed. "I've been through what it takes to make a hero, and this isn't it. You and Praxis don't want a hero, you want a monster." Violet flickered behind his eyes, tiny fireworks of dark eco lighting his bloodstream, and when he spoke again he felt that deeper, gravelly tone from the day he awoke matching his own. "And you may just get it."

**OOOOOOOO**

Praxis had mentioned as he left Jak and Erol to clean up after the most recent treatment that there was going to be an assessment soon, and that concerned the young captive. He didn't want to know what they were going to be assessing, much less how it involved him. Erol had said that he would be expected to fight when they were done with him, and the meager correlation Jak could find between the Captain's question and the Baron's announcement made a terrible feeling settle in the pit of his stomach.

Two days later, when Erol showed up in his room just barely after he had woken from another slew of nightmares, that feeling solidified into something almost painful. Erol never showed up this early anymore, he hadn't since—

"_There, aren't you grateful now?"_

The youth ground his teeth and broke off the thought. That was a long time ago; longer in his mind than on a calendar, certainly, but it was the past. The man hadn't touched him with such intent since, and from the way he behaved Jak was fairly certain he had no intention to.

Strong, gloved hands gripped his shoulders and stood the youth up. The Captain cuffed him at the wrists and gestured for him to follow as he turned, movement fluid, and walked out. Jak did as the silent order commanded, matching Erol's step with his own, marching in time with the beat of his captor's boots on the metal floor.

Erol said nothing, and that was bad. Erol was never completely silent—this would mark the first time Jak had been present to find the man silent for a space of more than a minute, at least outside a treatment. He wondered if that was one of the reasons the Captain and Praxis had been so determined to repair his damaged voice; Erol couldn't understand living without constantly making noise, couldn't understand communication beyond words. Erol was base and physical; everything he did had to be tangible, loud or bright or forceful enough to send a normal person reeling.

And yet he was silent save for the rhythm of his step on metal as they walked. The silence was jarring, not to mention more than a little ominous.

Jak supposed he could say something himself, throw out a quick probing word to see if Erol would respond, but he didn't _like_ talking. At all. He had a feeling he would never get completely used to having the ability, actually. Seventeen years without a voice—not counting the single whimper that existed outside his ability to recall in context—left him more than a little confused on how this new ability of his should be utilized.

They took a turn and Jak found himself on a lift not unlike the one that had taken him to see the Sage of Precursor Technology, so long ago. This one, though, rather than being square and enclosed, barely large enough to hold five people, was _huge_ and open, different in every way. As the massive circular platform began its descent Jak gauged the size, and supposed that at least a dozen people could stand on it comfortably. He didn't want to know what it was usually used for that it needed to be so large, but had a feeling he was going to be finding out any second.

The lift finished its journey and Jak was surprised to find Praxis waiting in a small chamber at the bottom. The room was about the same size as the youth's cell, with doors on the right and far walls. The Baron gave a silent nod in the Captain's direction and Erol bowed in return, and took a step backward before turning and heading off—Jak saw him come to the right wall through the corner of his eye as he stared down the Baron, then the Captain disappeared through the sliding door.

Praxis stood still for a long moment, single brown eye scrutinizing the youth up and down three times before the man gave a sigh and shook his head. "This is ridiculous," he muttered, turning around. "Come on, boy, it's time to prove your worth."

Jak didn't like the sound of that, but did as he was told nonetheless. What else could he do, after all?

"Erol tells me you can speak now," the man said as they headed toward a door on the far wall. "I have to say I'm surprised—you didn't make a sound during the last treatment I was present for."

Jak took a breath and spoke a smoothly as he could force. "I'm used to it."

Praxis turned to him, a smile twisting his aging features as he typed in a code on the touchpad beside the door. "That's nice to hear, because I have something completely different prepared for you today."

The youth shrugged. "Nothing's worked so far," he said easily, hoping with all his might that this tease would rile the Baron up as much as possible. When he was upset Praxis was sloppy, Jak had seen proof of that often enough during his treatments, and without Erol here to clean up after him Jak had a chance. If he could upset Praxis enough then he could beat him—the voice in his head promised it would be easy, easier even than Erol—and get out of here. Run to the lift, let it carry him up, and then…

And then what? Jak had no clue how big this place was; it had been forever since he was taken and he still found himself dragged to new rooms on an almost weekly basis. Or maybe he was simply so turned around the rooms just _looked_ different? Surely if he got away then he could figure a way out of here, away from this place.

He would escape, find Daxter and Keira and Samos and they would all go home. Somehow.

He took a breath to steady himself, force back the trepidation. "None of your experiments have worked so far, this won't be any different."

The Baron's smile didn't falter, and that dropped a dead weight in the youth's midsection. "I wouldn't be so sure of myself if I were you, boy. You might enjoy this one."

Jak seriously doubted it.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	7. Assessment Phase One

**Author's Note:** This chapter is longest thus far, and very violent. I can promise that things will get better, eventually, but for a while they get a lot worse. Here's the dropoff over the peak of Jak's psyche—and from here we go _straight down_.

Oh, Vin's in this one, though, so that's a plus. And Praxis! I love writing Praxis. (purrs) As much as I love drawing Dark Jak, I love writing Praxis.

There's also an illustration for this chapter—titled the same—up on my devART page, but it is _very_ bloody.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Seven: Assessment Phase One**

The door slid open, and Praxis grabbed Jak—so small in comparison to the Baron—by the arm and practically tossed him over the threshold. Jak stumbled very little, steadying himself within a couple steps, and turned to face the much larger man with narrowed eyes.

"Sit," Praxis ordered, gesturing to a chair set against the wall. When Jak made no move to obey, the Baron reached over and held a hand to his chest, giving a shove that almost threw the youth backward. It had been so long since he was in close contact with Praxis—this was only the third or fourth time the Baron had ever touched him—that Jak had forgotten what kind of differences in size and strength there were between the two of them.

Praxis was _much_ larger than Jak, and although he wasn't much stronger—if that shove was any indication—he had a clarity and focus that Jak most certainly lacked, that he had lacked since his first dark eco treatment. "Sit," the Baron repeated. "Or I'll make you."

Jak set his jaw, squared his shoulders, stood his ground. "Make me."

The man sighed and shrugged, his right shoulder moving a little slower than his left, and took a half-step backward with his left foot, lifting his right hand and pulling his left to form a fist against his hip. "If you insist."

Jak learned something in the next moment that he should have guessed, but had never really pondered before. Praxis was a skilled warrior. _Very_ skilled. His limp impeded him very little; he had apparently trained himself to place as little pressure on his bad leg as possible, right foot only tapping the floor for quick steadying pushes where his left stomped down as a firm foundation, a root to keep him upright even when Jak kicked with all his might.

The man wore armor down his entire right side, though his left leg was also covered by a stiff piece of molded metal. His technique was easy to understand—attack with the left, block with the right. The Baron's damaged side was stiff and—if his wince when he threw up his arm to block one of Jak's punches was any indication—painful to move, but it was still strong enough to serve as a shield.

The youth's blow glanced off and he leapt back, taking a deep breath in the same instant he surged forward. The Baron had barely moved from his initial place, shifting and sliding back and forth in the same two-foot area, ducking and blocking and moving only as much as was necessary.

Their strength might have been even—and the voice in Jak's head told him that if he would just let go he would overcome the older man through sheer power—but Praxis had experience where Jak didn't, and he was anything but uncertain in his movements. Jak had spent too much time outside himself, too many weeks allowing his body to change while he had no way of adjusting; he knew within three failed hits at the Baron that he had lost.

He ground his teeth. _No._ This was his only chance, the first chance he'd been awake enough to see since he was captured, and he wasn't going to let it go to waste.

Violet electricity crackled around his fist, his skin shifting to pale grey-blue for the space of a heartbeat, eyes flashing black when he struck. He felt the metal against his skin, felt a slice in his hand, smelled his own blood in the air as everything distorted through a filter of violet darkness over his eyes.

Baron Praxis' shield, the metal plate he wore over his right arm, shattered. Metal shot out around them both, slashed Jak's hand and arm, glanced off the metal plating on the side of Praxis' face. The Baron reeled backward and for just a moment it seemed Jak hovered in place, bloody hand against Praxis' bad arm as the man pulled away. The youth's eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth, giving a low growl.

The smell of dark eco mingled with the scent of blood hanging in the air as they fell back, and the all-too-familiar sizzle lit against both Jak's and his opponent's skin as it ate its way through Praxis' glove and sleeve.

Finally the moment returned to its normal flow, the instant ended and the contact broke. Praxis tore off his glove and ripped the fabric of his faded blue sleeve to examine his arm, finding it burned and blistered from the contact.

Jak took a step back as the man looked up from his arm to examine his prisoner; he saw the blood running down the youth's arm, watched the way it flashed when it hit the ground. Jak coughed, his eyes burned and his skin sparked when he breathed, his skull felt as though it was about to burst—but worst of all, that inhuman strength was gone. He was drained, empty; his legs felt weak and his breath was a raspy wheeze.

Praxis stared for a long moment, then his scarlet-brown eye narrowed. He stood up straight, cradling his eco-burned arm. "Not bad, boy. Not bad at all." Jak took an unsteady step backward, stumbled and fell. His body ached, all his muscles throbbing as he tried to breathe, tried to see, tried to move.

"Apparently that's our problem," the older man continued. He grinned, showed his arm and gestured to the blood on the floor. "Your body isn't metabolizing the dark eco, it's absorbing it. You channel it so well it's actually merging with your blood, pumping through your heart and running through your veins." He took two steps forward, and the sound of his boots on the metal was so loud Jak wanted to scream and cover his ears. The man reached down and grabbed the youth by his unwounded left arm and tossed him into the seat to his right. "You aren't just channeling the eco, you're becoming it."

Jak clenched his eyes shut as Praxis strapped him in, tried to block out the boom of his voice, to ignore the smile lacing his tone when he spoke again.

"What a creature you've turned out to be…"

**OOOOOOOO**

Everything was hazy. He remembered binds—leather or metal, he wasn't sure which—and something cold and tiny against his skin, the familiar electric smell that made him think only of the color blue.

"_There now, this'll only hurt for a minute. Just a pinprick."_

He remembered red hair and blue eyes, and orange hair and yellow eyes, and couldn't differentiate between them. For some reason that scared him, terrified him, because he knew that those two voice couldn't be more different, that those eyes looked at him in ways that could never be—should never have been—alike.

"Do you think it's taken affect yet?"

Deep voice. Booming. Loud. Metal and skin and power and evil all at once.

"I-I don't—why are y-you d-d-doing this? What c-c-could th-this—this _kid_—"

Higher. Something blue, pale and shaking. Familiar and sad and apologetic.

"Just answer me. Has it taken affect yet?"

A moment of silence.

"I-It's been s-such a long time…I-I don't know e-eco like the t-techs…! I-I don't—"

"Answer me."

Threatening. The scent of fear lit the air.

A deep breath. "I-I've never dealt w-with blue-treated d-d-dark eco, s-sir, but I'd a-assume that—that yes. Yes, i-it's taken affect."

A smile. "Good." Footsteps, closer and closer, a voice in his ear. "Jak. Jak, it's time." Hands under his arms, pulling him up. Flashes of color assaulted his vision, blurred and slow and strange. "Are you ready to prove yourself?"

He blinked, took a breath. His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed, hurting like he was sure he should know but couldn't quite recall. "I…" He looked up at the brown and grey and color of steel, and shook his head slowly. "I don't know," he whispered. "I don't know anything."

He thought he saw a smile, and the hands holding him up were removed. He stood on his own, and wondered if he should have been surprised. His legs felt strong, stronger than they should have and his hands itched to hold something. Anything. He just had to _move_ and everything would be fine. He would be all right, the world would come into focus. If only he could move…

"Hold still, just for a minute."

He looked up, found one eye and looked into it. He had moved? He had to move to be stopped, and the hand on his chest was definitely there to stop him. "Yes?" He breathed, blinking once.

Another smile. Maybe. "There are some things I need you to do for me. Can you follow orders?"

The other voice, the higher one that stuttered and felt like home, came back. Jak turned to find a blur of white and blue and pale brown—that white meant his head was bowed, right? That was hair. But hadn't his hair been brown last time? Brown streaked with blue and grey?—standing to his left. "I can't believe you're doing this."

It was a whisper, and the other one, the stronger one that smelled like death and hope and dark and metal, didn't seem to hear. Jak turned back. "I can." He wasn't sure who he was answering.

The hand left the youth's chest and gestured to what was probably a door. "Outside this door—" Then it was a door. Absolutely. "—there are people. Fight them."

Jak blinked at the command. Fight people? That was wrong, something he couldn't do. He could fight monsters, but not people. It wasn't right.

Red eyes and blue-grey skin flashed in his memory, twin laughs that reeked of madness and dark liquid that tasted like death. They had been people once. Like him. But he hurt them, fought them, killed them. The recollection of metal shattering under the force of his fist brought a sting to his hand and he lifted it, looking down at the deep scarlet gashes.

He had fought people already, even killed some. What were a few more?

He looked back up, dropped his hand to his side and nodded. The motion made his skull crackle, as though it were breaking. "All right."

That whisper again. "God, no. Don't do this. Stop."

Jak turned to the man with white and blue hair, who smelled of electricity and felt like home, who used to have brown hair in place of the white, and gave a smile that hurt his chest. His eyes stung for some reason as he shook his head once. "I can't."

'_Help me.'_

"…_I can't."_

It was the same, a mirror-image of the last time they met. A thousand years ago, the day before, he wasn't sure and it didn't matter. Nothing had changed.

The door opened, that strong hand pushed against his back, shoved him out into the light.

**OOOOOOOO**

There weren't actually that many, he thought. Two dozen, maybe. He hadn't really been counting. But it was so easy there couldn't have been many.

His eyes hurt, and one of his hands felt strange—very strange—but the black needles in his fingers made it easier. Just a slash of his left hand, a push, a twist, and it was done. Everything had turned red, and the air was heavy with the scent of so much scarlet, but he was almost done. He moved forward, clothing sticky and skin hot, a metallic taste in his mouth. One bare foot brushed something that was still warm, and he looked down at the matted blue hair and sightless brown eyes, at the mouth still wide open in a scream that had never quite made it out, and something in him whimpered.

He leaned down, placed his left hand on his opponent's chest and closed his eyes. He listened, felt, sensed a faint beat of the heart under his palm, and gave a sigh. "Sorry," he whispered.

Jak lifted his hand just high enough to press the tips of his claws against the bare skin of the fallen figure's chest. He ground his teeth, narrowed his eyes, and pushed. The move was swift and finishing, beating silenced almost instantaneously; the figure jerked anyway. He pulled his fingers out and stumbled back, but the thrashing had already stopped. There had been nothing left but the single motion—no retaliation, just a natural reaction.

He turned to look around when he realized the screams and shouts had stopped. Spatters of red covered the walls, smeared over the door, and all was still.

Except for right there, in the corner farthest from the second door the window that yellow eyes and metal features stared through. One figure, huddled and shivering, barely touched by the scarlet of his fellows and unwounded himself, sat there.

Jak came forward, shaking the fluid from his claw-hand in preparation, and looked down at his final opponent.

"Get up," Jak commanded, voice a gravelly bark.

The figure looked up, eyes wide and full of fear, and Jak froze. He was just a kid, no older than fifteen—if even that—with red hair and pale skin, a spray of freckles across his face under the blood, mouth open in a terrified grimace.

Jak blinked, reached down slowly, carefully, and took hold of the boy's arm, lifting him to his feet. He stared for a long moment, then lifted his right hand, the hand that wasn't a monster's yet, and cupped the boy's cheek.

His hair was too dark, his skin the wrong hue, his eyes brown where they should have been blue…but it was so similar. So close it hurt.

"Dax…?"

**OOOOOOOO**

Erol and Praxis stood observing their subject's progress, the former reveling in the carnage where the latter remained stoic.

"It's too bad we can't see better, isn't it Milord?" The Captain smirked, leaning on the console that controlled the air flow, lighting and temperature of the room Jak fought in. "I'd like to see if he has any physical manifestations of the dark eco on his body." He sighed and spun his seat around, propping his feet up on the console and heaving a sigh. "Oh well, we'll just have to check the video afterw—"

Praxis' hand was in his face, an order for silence that the Captain instantly obeyed. The Baron leaned both hands on the console and leaned forward, brow furrowing as he watched Jak lift the last prisoner to his feet, reach out and touch him gently, heard the barest hint of a whisper over the speakers. "Bring up the volume!" he ordered.

Erol moved one foot, brushing his heel along a dial, and the speakers began to hum with quiet white noise as they waited for another sound.

"Who is that?" Praxis asked, turning to his second in command.

Erol sat up straight and spun his chair around completely, wheeling it over to the computer on the other wall. He keyed in a code and scrolled up and down, finally stopping about halfway through the list. "Prisoner 4076." He glanced over his shoulder. "Rune Thian."

Praxis blinked. "Your nephew?"

The Captain shrugged and wheeled back to the Baron's side. "Doesn't matter." His brow furrowed as he looked out the window and across the room to Jak. "Why is he touching him like that?"

The Baron shook his head. "I don't—" His hand shot out again. "Quiet!"

Jak's voice came over the speakers again, barely understandable through the white noise of the other prisoner's breathing. _"Dax, what are you doing here?"_

Praxis turned to the Krimzon guard and Erol shrugged in his own confusion. Jak had killed everyone else without hesitation—who was this 'Dax' that he would be able to stop their top Dark Warrior when he was filled to the brim with blue-treated dark eco?

"He's not fighting blind, sir," Erol said softly, standing and crossing his arms behind his back. "He's still aware of his surroundings, to an extent."

The older man nodded. "Well, we don't want him killing our own men when we put him on the battlefield. But this…" He tapped his knuckles to the glass. "This could be problematic. We don't want him taking pity on anyone that looks familiar."

The two were silent for a long moment, then the younger of the two grinned. "If you don't mind, Baron, I have an idea."

**OOOOOOOO**

"Dax, what are you doing here?"

The boy shivered, stared, whimpered, but said nothing.

Jak ran his fingers over the slimmer youth's face, not noticing the streaks of scarlet that trailed in their wake, looked him up and down with eyes that weren't entirely blue anymore, and loosened his grip with his claw-fingered hand. "Daxter, it's all right. I'm here. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you."

The door on the far wall slid open. "Rune!"

Daxter-not-Daxter turned, and Jak did as well when he hissed a too-familiar name. "…Erol!"

The Captain strode across the room, picking his way over the bodies and blood, and as Jak watched the familiar blue-on-yellow boots maneuver through the slaughter something in him snapped. The haze lifted, sounds came back into proper volume and his vision came back into focus. He took a step back, letting go of the red-haired youth's arm, and looked around in a mingling of terror and disgust.

He lifted his clawed hand, reached up to feel the blood caked in his emerald-gold hair, and his breathing turned short. "Oh god…" His eyes widened, both flashing back to their proper blue, and the black claws receded into his fingers once again. "Oh my god…"

Jak slumped to his knees, sobbing, and reached up to clutch his head. "Precursors, what have I _done_?"

Erol gave a nod to the boy and gestured to the door as he continued forward—the youth raced and stumbled toward it, disappearing through the portal in a matter of seconds.

The Captain stopped at last just in front of the broken warrior, giving a sneer as he ran his tongue over his teeth. "You did well," he said. "Praxis approves of your progress, at least for this phase." He chuckled. "Keep this up and I'll get to keep you."

Jak shook his head. "I won't. I can't." He bit his lip so hard he was sure it would draw blood, and gave a whimpering hiss. "I can't believe you made me do this."

"I had nothing to do with this, Jak. Nothing at all. This, for once, is entirely Praxis." He grinned. "The next phase, though, was purely my idea. Hopefully you won't screw that one up like you did here."

Jak kept his head bowed. Erol waited several seconds for a reply, and his eyes narrowed when none was given. He reached out and took hold of the youth's hair, wrenching him to his feet. "I have a question for you, my dear little Jak."

"Don't touch me!" The youth hollered, slamming both hands against the larger man's midsection, shoving him away. "Don't ever touch me!"

Erol glared and ground his teeth. "I'll do what I want with you," he spat, taking a step forward and taking hold of Jak's arm by the ID cuff on his wrist. "I _own_ you." He tugged on the cuff, ran his gloved fingers over the letters and digits engraved on the bone-colored metal. "I'll own you as long as you have this on your wrist."

Jak growled, a low animalistic sound, and Erol saw his irises fade to black, watched the whites of his eyes be swallowed by the same shadow. His skin turned ashen around his eyes, the different shade forming patterns down his cheek, around his mouth, down his neck. He felt a rush of cold through his body as Jak raised his hand, black claws erupting from his fingertips—this time on both hands—and struck.

The fabric of Erol's suit parted instantly—he felt a fool for not wearing his breastplate—when contacted by the razor-sharp lengths of black, keratin daggers slashing deep into his skin. The Captain pulled back, staring down his prisoner from a leap away, and smirked. "So you want to start phase two early, then?"

Jak grinned, baring sharp teeth, as he noticed that the man's smile was not without pain. "Whenever you catch your breath, I'm ready."

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	8. Facets of Being

**Author's Note: **Superfast update, because I'm feeling gloomy and I know you awesome reviewer-type folks will make it all better.

I'm going to stop talking about chapter length or I'll just keep saying "this is the longest chapter so far" in every update. (But this one is ten pages.) Anyway, I present for your reading pleasure a fight between Jak and Erol, a more pronounced understanding of Dark Jak, Calm!Erol, Pwned!Erol, and mention of Daxter if you squint and tilt your head sideways.

Also, there is now a fanvid entitled _What's Worth Fighting For_ up on my YouTube account—youtube(dot)com, search for member _Nashidesei_—based off this fic. Enjoy.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Eight: Facets of Being**

Although externally Jak was taunting, laughing and pushing Erol's buttons in all the ways he hadn't dared in months, he was extremely confused. He had come to think of the whisperings in his head as a separate entity, a creature formed from the coupling of Praxis' experiments and the dark eco inside him—now he realized it was quite the opposite. The whisperings in his head were just like all the other renegade thoughts he had heard in his lifetime, strange mental images that seemingly sprung from nowhere but were certainly _his_ in every way, shape and form.

He understood now that the monster under his skin was not, in fact, something alien and new, but rather a part of himself he had never put much stock in before. The part that turned angry when Keira teased Daxter a little too much, that got annoyed when Samos seemed to be pushing him a little too hard in his training and explaining why in too few words, that he listened to only when entirely necessary. He had thought the whispers and taunts, the jeers and scathing warnings were from somewhere else, something that had been transplanted into his head through Praxis' and Erol's experiments.

He was wrong.

It hurt, it made him sick to his stomach and made his head hurt as though it were going to burst, but he understood. This creature, this monster under his skin, was _him_. Just as much as the hero that had channeled light eco to defeat Gol and Maia Acheron and their twisted robot, just as much as the boy that took advantage of the view when Keira bent down over her toolbox and enjoyed every minute of it, this thing was him. Not a separate entity, not something that possessed him like a ghost in one of Daxter's fireside stories, just another facet of his being.

It was as frightening as it was exhilarating.

Erol, for his right, seemed just as interested in the bizarre changes occurring to the youth as Jak himself was. As Jak lifted his hands to look at the claw-tipped fingers and followed the bizarre ash-hued patterns running up and down his arms with his gaze, Erol didn't move to attack, instead watching the boy move with a fair measure of curiosity.

"Interesting," the Captain said, voice a hiss in the still air.

Jak tilted his head from side to side, loosening the muscles in his neck and shoulders, and shook both hands in preparation. He felt he should have said something, given some hint that he was ready to fight and ready to hurt, ready to feel Erol's body break under his hands—_No, Praxis has to die first._—and ready to watch the life drain from his eyes—_Erol's just the lackey, the second level, the surface._—but he couldn't bring himself to make a sound.

_What am I doing?_

This monster might have been a part of him, but it was a part over which he had very little control—or rather, a part that kept him from controlling himself. He understood that Erol wasn't the main threat, that doing this was foolish as well as pointless, but he wanted to hurt something right now, make someone pay for making him a monster, and Erol was the only person in sight.

So he fought. He kicked Erol's legs out from under him and grinned when his head cracked against the floor, kicked him in the stomach and almost laughed when he curled up to avoid another such hit. His bones burned, eco burning him from the inside out, and Jak ground his teeth. He reached down and grabbed Erol by his hair, pulling him back to his feet even as his claws tore deep gashes in the man's scalp, even scraping bone under the skin in some places.

It was Praxis' orders that had made him this, but it was Erol's hands. Surely that warranted some form of recompense, allowed Jak a small measure of vengeance. Surely it was all right to hurt them back, after realizing that they had hurt him enough to make him a monster.

He took hold of Erol's arm with his free hand, twisted it until the muscles were stiff and bone grating, and them gave the lightest push. The bones snapped under his hand, halves scraping against each other with such noise it made Jak's ears ring. They had made him this, they deserved to pay. They wanted a monster, and they were going to get it.

Erol almost screamed.

The memory of Samos sharpened the ache in his head as teachings from the days before they activated the Rift Gate—that was what the great and terrible creature had called it, if Jak recalled correctly—resurfaced. The old man had spoken in warning, told the boy of what truly made a man a monster, spoken in tones that made Jak wonder just what the man expected him to become. _"Gol could have filled himself to the brim with dark eco,"_ the sage had said, _"and never have been a monster, if only he had remembered the worth of life."_

Every life was precious, from the tiniest insect to the largest whale—from the brightest hero to the darkest villain. So long as one remembered that they would never truly be a monster, regardless of what they looked like. Erol was a monster because he treated people like playthings, because he had forgotten—or never learned—what it meant to take life.

Jak was becoming a monster not by suffering through his ministrations and torture, but by following Erol's footsteps.

He let go with a start, able to pull back just in time to avoid a kick from the Captain as he recovered at last from that blinding pain in his arm. Jak met the kick by blocking with his left arm and throwing a punch with his right. It was hard to keep his hands in fists with those killing claws, but Jak was determined not to use them again. He would not become the monster Erol and Praxis wanted him to be.

Erol pulled back, just barely dizzied from the hit, and smirked as he reached up with his good arm to wipe away the blood trailing out the corner of his mouth. "Not bad," he grunted, features deepened with pain. "You're very fast."

Jak took a steadying breath, his entire body flaring with pain at the sudden stillness. "I'm not doing this, Erol," he said evenly. He knelt, hands braced on the floor.

The Captain jerked, just barely, and Jak realized it was the first time he had called him by name. He wondered if it had the same affect on the yellow-eyed madman as it had on him.

Erol took a breath and gestured about with his right arm. "What, have you run out of steam already?" He cocked his head to one side, askew helmet tilting slightly to shadow his expression—just enough to mask the little bit of pain that fought its way through the man's schooled features. "Don't tell me you're giving up? When you're so close to finally taking me down?"

Jak blinked, and a swift rush of heat ran through his eyes. He didn't see it, but _felt_ the change from black back to blue. "I'm going to take you down all right," he replied. Claws receded again, like a cat that no longer sensed a threat. "But I'm not going to do it like this, with Praxis watching and you just waiting for me to go over the edge." Slowly the blue-grey patches on his skin faded back to the deep tan—a bit pale from mistreatment—he had been born with. "I won't be what you want me to be."

Erol's eyes narrowed and he ground his teeth, good arm slipping behind him. "We'll see about that." He lunged forward, clutching something that shone like glass and metal and liquid all at once—moving so fast that the only reason Jak noticed it was because the dark eco inside him was still moving too fast, keeping him too alert _not_ to notice—and stabbed the bizarre object straight into the boy's arm.

Jak realized, too late, that the thing was a needle and syringe, the kind they used to tranquilize him before treatments that would make him particularly unstable. He had only ever seen such a thing twice since his capture, but at least he understood why a fog settled over his vision within a heartbeat.

"It's time for phase three now, Jak," Erol said, looming over him. "Let's see how you handle the next week." Something lit in his eyes, kindling a devilish grin. "Oh, I almost forgot—happy anniversary."

Jak closed his eyes and, for the first time, didn't fight the unnatural sleep that came up all around him.

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak decided within two hours of waking that phase three was by far the worst portion of this assessment. The first indication of what this final—according to Erol—segment of tests was delivered by the Captain himself, in the form of a small envelope made of the smoothest, whitest parchment Jak had ever seen.

"A gift from the Baron," Erol said with a smile. He laughed at Jak's suspicious glance in his direction and waved his right hand—his left bound in a sling—in dismissal. "Don't worry, it's nothing that's going to hurt you." He turned to leave, pausing with his hand on the door. "Well, nothing that will hurt you _physically_."

And then he was gone, leaving Jak with a bizarre object that he couldn't chance opening, but at the same time couldn't keep sealed. Whatever was inside that envelope was something Praxis wanted him to see, something he wouldn't be able to avoid much longer. He figured if he was going to be played with he might as well have it done in his own cell, without Erol in the room to watch.

He gave a glance at the monitor set into the wall, checking his eco levels before he dared to do something of Praxis' suggestion, and opened the envelope.

There were pictures inside; perfectly clear, paper even and undistorted. These weren't paintings, though Jak couldn't think what else they could be. There were so many things about this world he didn't understand, so many things he didn't dare ask.

Erol had lied—the pictures _did_ hurt. They made his eyes sting and his stomach lurch, made his heartbeat quicken until he feared it would burst. He ground his teeth as his mouth went dry, hands shaking.

They were pictures of the people he had killed, the people whose blood had so completely stained his clothing that apparently even Erol couldn't stand it and had the youth's clothing changed while he was unconscious.

Had he really done this? How could he possibly have caused such mutilation, torn limbs from their sockets and ripped faces open so roughly that bone was visible beneath the blood? The bodies were splayed out like dolls carelessly tossed aside in favor of a new toy, ripped and shredded and still screaming in his head—

Jak clenched his eyes shut and flung the pictures as far away as he could, heard them hit the wall with a slap, fall to the ground with such volume he knew he was on the verge of losing control again. He ground his teeth harder, feeling them sharpen and extend even as he tried to force them back. His hands, clenched into fists, were pierced as one by one his fingernails lengthened into ebony claws.

_I won't be what they want me to be,_ he asserted. _I won't—I can't! People are counting on me, people need me. Praxis has to fall and Erol has to fall with him. I have to keep fighting._

Slowly—slower than before—he shifted back to normal. It hurt this time, as though his body was reluctant to let go of the changes it had worked so hard to instill, but Jak swallowed the pain. He would not be a monster; he had come too close already, those pictures proved as much. He would _never_ allow himself to come that close again. Not now, not ever.

"I won't do this," he ground out, opening his eyes and taking a deep, shaky breath. "I won't be this monster for you, Erol!"

**OOOOOOOO**

Just outside the door, leaning against the wall, Erol's eyes narrowed and he bit back an oath. The Captain pushed himself up and started off down the hall—he had other subjects to check, people that were more easily battered and already broken a thousand times over.

None of them could equal this youth, though. None of them held half the potential of Jak, and none of them were worth half as much time. He would be back, and just maybe dear little Jak's resolve would waver as phase three of his assessment continued.

**OOOOOOOO**

A half hour later found the fiery-haired man at his desk on the top level of the prison, swimming in paperwork. He tapped his chin with the end of his pen as he tried to decide what it was that had finally finished off number six, the young woman two cells down from Jak, and finally settled on a heart attack. There had been more, certainly—the overdose of dark eco, hysteria that pushed her to throwing herself at the wall randomly and the wounds sustained when she refused to behave.

She had been loud, and Erol hadn't liked it at all. He could handle a certain amount of screaming—even enjoy it to a degree, depending on the subject—but she had shrieked almost nonstop for the entire two days after phase two of Jak's assessment, babbling incoherencies all about a young man that glowed white and blue and little creatures that made universes. Complete madness.

"A heart attack, then," he muttered, scribbling it down in his crude, scratchy penmanship. "That's the default, after all…" He surveyed the sheet when he finished, not signing the line at the bottom until he read it over once or twice. His penmanship really was terrible, he admitted with a quick bite of his bottom lip. His brother had once told him that the way he wrote made it appear as though a tiny Metalhead had stomped across his paper with ink-soaked claws, and he had to give a nod now in admission that the older man had been right.

"Well, not quite." Narrowing his eyes slightly his good hand flitted to brush over his chest. It still stung when he breathed—hence why he had opted once again not to wear his armor today—and served as a silent reminder of what a good set of claws could _really_ do. The wounds left by his favorite Dark Warrior had been deep and laced with the eco the youth so readily absorbed. It took seven hours with a green eco drip running in the infirmary to seal the gashes, and even now they weren't completely healed.

Jak's penmanship, cut into his chest, was much cleaner than his. The wounds would scar, but were so precise and fine that Erol doubted they would do much to mar the tattoos running down his chest.

A high series of beeps rang out and the man sighed, putting his pen back to paper and signing to confirm that it had been cardiac arrest that killed Dark Warrior number seven. "Come in," he said, voice barely below a shout.

The door slid open and a single guard stepped in, helmet in his hands. He almost looked familiar, and Erol looked him up and down to find an insignia denoting rank. He blinked in confusion when he realized that the man was just a grunt, and wondered how he had possibly lived long enough to be familiar to the Krimzon Guard's commander.

"Commander Erol," he said with a nod. The man in question waved his hand for the man to get one with whatever he had come for, and the guard swallowed thickly. "Well, sir, there has been a rise in the number of complaints submitted lately, and I thought I would bring it up with you to decide to best course of action."

So _that _was where he recognized him from—this man, in spite of his armor, was a desk worker. He had a short beat just outside the prison that he ran for thirty minutes every day, and the rest of his time was spent reading and remedying the numerous complaints filed by the rest of the Guard.

"What kind of complaints?" If they complained about the screaming during the night shift one more time Erol was going to commit genocide.

Lucky for the Krimzon Guard at large, that was not the problem. Apparently several of the guards had noticed scurrying, scraping noises sounding in the walls of late, and when the help desk grunt finally reached this point Erol rolled his eyes, looking up from his desk with a sigh. "Well if it's bothering you so much why don't you hire an exterminator?"

"Because, sir, we believe that it might be insects that are related to the Metalheads. Cousins, if you like." The man crossed his hands behind his back. "And the only exterminator willing to go up against such creatures has a less-than-savory reputation."

Erol blinked. Just once, and very slowly. Then he held a hand to his head and tried to stifle an exasperated sigh. As if the Krimzon guard had a decent reputation… "Just hire them!"

The man started, saluted and left. Erol took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, reaching out to pick his pen back up and fiddle with it. Metalheads in the prison? Who ever heard of such a thing? Still, if the creatures spooking the graveyard shift were in fact relatives of Haven City's greatest adversaries, then they had to be eliminated. He couldn't have monsters playing with his warriors, particularly when there was a handful—still alive—that were close to monsters themselves.

None came as close as Jak, though. None did as well, and none were as stubborn. If they could break him completely with this final phase then the Krimzon Guard would have an unstoppable weapon, a creature that not even the massive beasts guarding the Nest could defeat.

"At least I have something to look forward to," he sighed, going back to his paperwork.

**OOOOOOOO**

The next entry in Jak's third assessment wasn't even concealed, and so assaulted Jak's vision when he woke up the next day. At least the pictures had been tucked carefully into that envelope—which, along with the terrible images, had been removed from his floor sometime during the night. This most recent mess was completely uncovered and left just inside the door in a heap.

Twenty-seven ID cuffs, some gashed and ripped, twisted and even halfway _melted_, still dark with dried blood and sticky in some places where skin had come up with the bone-colored metal. No names, just numbers and three letters to designate the wearer's place in the prison—mostly REG, though he did pick out two or three marked with the same DWP as his own cuff—but that didn't keep Jak from remembering that these had been attached to _people _not long ago, and that they would still be safely on some two-dozen wrists if it weren't for him.

He picked each cuff up in turn, heart aching, a stabbing pain focused on two places on the top of his head, and one by one arranged them on the floor. He noticed that the ones marked the same initials as his cuff were in far worse repair than the others, and wondered why. What was so special about these people that the terrible killing machine inside him felt the need to leave tooth-marks, to crush them to parchment-thin strips and soak them in the eco that had taken residence in his blood?

The door slid open and Jak lifted his head from the seventeenth cuff in his arrangement, marked only one digit higher than his own designation. Erol grinned down at him and stepped in—alone—only one step before stopping to look down at the youth.

"Interesting, aren't they?" He inquired amicably. "The things you did to some of them…that one in particular was fairly gruesome." He came forward, moved around Jak to take a seat on the cot. He leaned back on his arms, and it was then that Jak realized the Captain no longer had his arm in a sling. "Would you like me to describe it to you, or do you remember?"

"What happened to your arm?" he asked. The twin pains in his head dulled as he dropped the torn cuff to the ground, the sound of metal on metal almost musical in its rattling.

Erol arched one eyebrow, sitting straight again to allow his arm to move. "Oh, so you do remember."

"You had a sling on yesterday, you don't today," Jak answered. In actuality he did remember what he had done, Erol knew he remembered, but the youth preferred to keep the Captain dancing around the subject for as long as possible.

The older man flexed his elbow, curled his fingers in and out, and then gave an unmistakably nasty look to his captive. "You really did a number on me, you know. They had to hammer needles directly into the bones," he tapped his elbow, then his wrist, "here and here and pump in more green eco than I've used in the last year. It worked well, though." He curled his hand into a fist. "It doesn't even hurt."

"Is that so?" The boy replied.

Erol leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Yes, it is. But enough about me; how are you feeling today?"

Jak's eyes narrowed and he reached down to pick up a cuff from the floor. "Was this your idea too? Like my fighting you?"

Erol reached out, brushing his gloved fingers over the gashed metal, and shook his head. "No, this was a…joint effort. It took Praxis and I almost an entire day to decide what to save for use in your assessment. Lucky for us you were unconscious."

"And what else did you _save_?" His voice had deepened, turning gravelly and dark, and he caught the flicker of fear that lit in Erol's eyes at the shift. "What else do you have to show me that I did something—something _terrible_ that I already know I did?" When Erol didn't reply, instead averting his eyes and starting to whistle tunelessly, heat flared in Jak's chest. He pulled back his arm and threw the metal band at Erol with all his might. It might have been a childish move, but it was effective enough; Erol flinched when the object struck him in the head, glancing off his helmet—which, Jak noted, still bore a series of slashes across its lower end—and ricocheting to land on the other side of the room with a _clang_.

Jak was on his feet now, and so was Erol. The pains in his head had returned with full force, intensifying with each word as his eyes began to sting. "What else did you do to desecrate all those people you—you and Praxis—" He grit his teeth, clenching his hands into fists. "—all those people you made me kill!"

Erol's glare morphed into a smirk and he clicked his tongue. "Ah, my dear boy, you misunderstand. We never told you to kill them, never even insinuated that you were supposed to." He took a step forward, kicking several bracelets from his path and looking down at the smaller man with amusement. "You did that all on your own."

The youth's blood went cold. He had killed of his own volition? Not led even a little into doing those awful things? No, Praxis must have said something, something that was meant to make him hurt beyond repair, something that made him a monster…

"_Outside this door, there are people."_

The words were clear in his memory now, unmistakable in spite of the splitting pain in his head.

"_I want you to fight them."_

"Fight them…" he murmured under his breath, looking down at the twisted circles of metal all around him. "Fight them."

Erol gave a single laugh, a chuckle amid the perfect and horrible clarity of Jak's thoughts, and the youth's head snapped to stare. "Now you understand."

"But I…I _wouldn't_…"

The Captain placed a hand on Jak's neck, pushing his fingers through the tangled emerald-gold hair, and leaned in close. So close Jak could smell him, taste his breath in the air, sense the faintest hints of fear in his voice. "But you _did_, Jak."

The pain in Jak's head reached a peak, so strong now that he felt as though twin daggers were being ground not into but out of his skull. He reached up, dizzy from the pain, to grip his head, and froze in place when his touch brushed over something smooth and warm, wet and stiff like blood over bone.

Erol had stepped back, eyes wide, and when Jak lifted his head, an expression of pleading confusion in his gaze, the older man pushed past and left the room. Jak almost called out after him, almost asked what was happening, but all that emerged was a high-pitched, raspy croak.

He reached up again, working claws—where had those come from—around the bizarre thing on his head, giving a light tug that almost made him scream. Light flashed behind his eyes, so bright he went blind, and the perfect clarity of thought that had settled over him explained in that instant of white-hot hurt exactly what was happening. He recalled the barest beginnings of horns on Gol, how hints of bone peeked through rips in dark blue-grey flesh when the fallen sage moved his head, and understood.

Jak's hands trailed down from the sharp black horns cloven through the thick green roots of his hair to cover his face. He slumped to the ground in a crouch, shivering and sobbing and praying that this was all a dream, just another nightmare, that he would wake up any second in his hut back in Sandover, that this was all some horrible vision caused by the vestiges of terror the Acherons left behind.

But when he pulled his hands away—still a pale tan, not the bizarre blue-white that had twisted over his flesh when he fought Erol—there were still black claws, his head still ached in ways it never should have, and twenty-seven mangled bracelets stared up at him in accusation.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	9. Irreparable Damage

**Author's Note:** I don't actually have much to say here, except that this chapter was frelling _frustrating_ to write. Nobody wanted to behave at all. Oh well, it turned out okay, I guess.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Nine: Irreparable Damage**

Jak was afraid to sleep. If he did such monstrosities when he was awake, became a creature of nightmares when fully aware, then he didn't want to know what would happen if he slept. His changing back from that creature, that thing that was actually _him_, was coming slower and slower these days, more painful with each passing hour. It had taken six hours for those monster's horns to finally dive back into his skull—causing a surge of pain that almost knocked him out—and three for his claws to shrink back into dull fingernails.

He went for three days without sleeping, never getting up to check what the other entrants for phase three were—although from his cot he could see a braided lock of blue hair, singed at the end, sitting on the floor with the ID cuffs, a new envelope and a small metal cylinder—or to take the one tray of food Erol's men left for the entirety of his sleepless stretch. He had been strung too tightly, a single tap would set him off and he knew it. A wrong word or mental image or even a brush of fingers over his skin would drive him mad, and he was afraid.

If being awake made him insane, then sleeping would destroy his world.

When he closed his eyes to rest them on the fourth day since Erol left and didn't open them for _seven hours_, Jak awoke with a nightmarish surge of terror, visions in his head equating far too well with his reality. He checked his hands for claws and bloodstains, searched his skin for even a single ash-colored patch, ran his tongue over his teeth and ran his fingers through his hair to check for horns.

He leaned back against the wall at the head of his cot, closing his eyes—blue, not black—and daring the slightest hint of a smile. He was still himself—still reeking of dark eco, but not of blood. His skin crackled when he ran his hand up his arms, violet flashing just below the surface, but it didn't hurt and didn't bring his senses to inhuman clarity. The screaming in his head had dulled—he had come to understand that it would never completely fade—and though he was nothing short of exhausted, he felt better than he had in…

He winced at the realization that he didn't remember.

Taking a deep breath to push back the upset, Jak weighed his options and tried to formulate an actual plan for escape, something he hadn't done in months. There were hopes and flickers of determination, but none of them had ever been planned more than a moment in advance.

It had been at least four days since his last dark eco treatment—five if he factored in the day Erol said he spent unconscious—and he didn't seem to be suffering any symptoms of withdrawal. If Praxis was right and his blood was actually converting into eco then it made sense that he was still able to breathe and see and move. It would take a fair amount of time for his blood to metabolize back into normalcy, and until then he would be fairly stable so long as no more eco was added to his system—the likelihood of which was extremely slim. He might have scared Erol off for the time being, but if Jak had learned one thing in his over-year stay here it was that the Captain always came back. He would have to do something to avoid the older man's experiments, at least for a little while.

He supposed, as the old fisherman from back in Sandover used to say, he would cross that bridge when he came to it.

As far as treatments went, factoring the levels of eco in his system that hadn't been absorbed into his bloodstream, he knew he was pretty much beyond repair. He was at least as far gone as Gol, he knew that much, well beyond any hope of recovery. His eyes went dark at the thought of what kind of future there would be if—no, when he got out of this place. He would kill Praxis, then take on Erol once and for all, and then…what?

Then follow in Gol's footsteps and let the Dark Eco taken him once and for all? Let it eat away his insides until he couldn't breathe or talk or even touch the ground? He shuddered at the thought of having to wear weights around his waist the way Gol had to keep from floating off into oblivion, of every breath feeling like daggers in his lungs forever, voices whispering a thousand false promises in the corners of his hearing, calling madness and shadows enough to turn his whole world black with pain—

He bit his tongue to pull himself out of the nightmare, shaking his head hard.

_I will never be Gol._

Jak took a steadying breath, closed his eyes again, and thought. He planned and practiced in his head, worked out timing in plausible situations, the position of the last windowed room he had ever seen—at least six months ago, if not more—and how long it would take to reach it at a run. How much force it would take to shatter the glass. Whether or not he could survive the jump.

Blue eyes opened, electric violet flashing behind them, and Jak reached up to scratch at the scruffy emerald hair on his chin. He had, for the first time since his capture, an honest-to-Precursors plan.

He could only hope it would work.

**OOOOOOOO**

Erol came the next day, once again wearing that strange black-and-red outfit that reminded Jak of the days after he defeated Gol and Maia, when he would race through the Precursor Basin with Daxter clinging to his back so tightly he was sure it would tear the leather of his pack, the wind rushing past, chill and damp against his face, smelling of grass and earth and lightning.

Things were different now; very different. He raked a hand through his hair—hair he had spent hours working the tangles from with his fingers the day before for want of something to keep him occupied—and wondered what Samos would say if he saw him now. There was no hero left in him now, no righteousness and light; he was still just as determined as he had ever been, but rather than using that determination to save a world from darkness he focused it on thoughts of escape and vengeance.

Erol seemed to notice Jak's appraising look of his attire and gave his usual half-smirk, holding out his arms and spinning around in place. "You like it? It's my racing gear for the current circuit."

Jak had been unable to hide the way his ears perked and his eyes lit up at the word 'racing,' and Erol's smile broadened. "Oh, so you like racing, do you?" He took a step forward, cocking his head to one side. "Are you any good?"

Was he? He could drive two miles in under forty-five seconds, lay out green eco over a twenty-foot patch of dark in such speed that the dark never had a chance to wear back through to the surface, make it through a forty-mile tunnel filled with lava quickly and deftly enough to keep from getting himself killed, and had done it all in the course of less than two months.

"I can hold my own."

The Captain gave a slow nod, holding a hand to his chin, tapping one finger to his lips as he thought. "I wonder," he murmured, "if I'll ever get to see that?"

Jak didn't deem the question worthy of answering. He didn't intend to make any promises of future contact with this madman—the thought of Erol watching while he raced, as the air rushed through his too-long hair and over his scraped and bruised face, smiling and waiting, taking stock of how he drifted a little in the turns and didn't use the brake nearly enough, was an unpleasant one.

The memory of the Precursor Basin, like so many before it, was tarnished forever.

Jak's eyes narrowed marginally and he took a cleansing breath before leaning back against the wall and balancing one arm on his knee. "What do you want, Erol?" he asked impatiently. When the older man's yellow eyes narrowed down at his charge, Jak had already looked away to pick at his fingernails. He noted that they were grey, and took another deep breath, closing his eyes to push back to instinctive reaction to Erol's presence.

He looked again. Now they were black, but not yet sharp. He swore internally and looked back at the Captain as he clenched his hands into fists and rose to his feet. "I asked you a question," he growled. Goad the man into anger, get him to leave, scare him away—he had to do something. The Captain of the Guard made him lose control, made his baser emotions take the forefront and forced him to relive moments that never should have happened in the first place. If he intended to put his plan into action he had to get the older man out of here _now_.

Erol didn't even flinch at the gravelly undertone in the youth's voice. "Indeed you did," he smirked. His eyes were still bright with anger, though, and Jak fought back tooth-and-nail against the urge to tear them out. "I suppose I do owe you an explanation."

Jak said nothing, keeping silent even as he felt his fingernails sharpen and lengthen ever so slightly, slicing into his palms. He could sense something in Erol's words, some certainty that felt far too much like Praxis' to ignore. Erol was never this sure of himself—arrogant, yes, but never like this. This was like Samos talking about plants, or Keira about her Zoomer, or even Daxter skipping rocks. Erol knew exactly what was about to happen, and whatever it was made him smile.

Erol reached out and brushed an errant lock of hair from Jak's face, then drew back and looked him over. His expression softened and he unwound the scarlet bracer from his right wrist and held out the thick fabric toward the youth. "Here, this should keep your hair from your face."

"What do you _want_, Erol?" he repeated, feeling when his eyes flashed black.

The man's eyes narrowed, and though he kept smiling the kindness drained completely from his tone. "You'll want to tie back your hair. Trust me." He held out the cloth further. "We have another treatment for you today, and if your face isn't readily accessible it's likely you'll get hurt during the prep."

Jak eyed the fabric, then—reluctantly—reached out to take it. He had to admit he wouldn't mind something to keep his damnable mane out of his face, and if it would keep him from getting hit again he supposed it was for the better. Erol's fingers wrapped around his wrist when their hands met, forcing the contact to last longer than it should have. It took only an instant for him to pull away, but it was an instant Jak would have preferred to have had as far away from Erol as possible.

But then, that was how he felt most of the time.

The Captain stepped to the side and gestured to the door, still open behind him. Jak, reaching up to wind the red band around his head as he used to wear his goggles—tucking the ends into the collar of his shirt—made to move to leave. Erol sighed, turned, and took a step toward the open portal. "Come, Jak. We have places to be and little time to get there."

Jak smiled as he started off behind the fiery-haired racer. Erol had no idea how right he was.

**OOOOOOOO**

"Sewer line—" he crawled over, "—insulation—" scampered around, "—some sorta…pipe…" Dark blue eyes narrowed and fuzzy orange eyebrow ridges jutted downward. "Dammit, this place is huge! How'm I ever gonna find those lousy bugs in this mess!" A long furry foot kicked the pipe, hard, and someone cried out overhead.

He laughed aloud at the sounds of mayhem up above, the scrambling of heavy boots on metal as the people on the next floor hurried to repair whatever damage he had done with that one blow. That laughter died instantly, however, when someone kicked at the floor—the ceiling for him—and shouted, "Hey, what's going on down there?"

"Oops…" Fur standing on end, he hurried on past the pipe, rushing onward until he reached the grate at the end of the crawl space between walls. With a sigh he hooked slim fingers into the metal and started to push, freezing in place again when one long ear twitched at the scuff of rubber on flooring. He drew back a little further into the crawlspace, waiting for whoever it was to pass before he dared to push his way out.

He might be here legally, but he doubted anyone aside from the young lieutenant that hired him knew exactly what he was. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of last month, when he had been beaten with a broom when mistaken for a common rodent.

_Yeah, it definitely sucks to be Daxter…_ He thought, waiting as the footsteps drew nearer, reaching a crescendo as red-on-black boots tromped right past his hiding place, followed by dark bare feet.

"You're awfully quiet today," said the first—red boots, black slacks—as he walked past.

"I don't have much reason to talk, do I?" the other replied—bare feet, dark ivory pants with fraying cuffs.

The first voice was familiar. Painfully so. Daxter winced as the man he knew to be Commander Erol, head of the Krimzon Guard, continued on his way with some unknown prisoner in his wake. The ottsel almost gagged at the odor of dark eco that permeated the air around the second figure. It was as bad, if not worse, than what he had picked up during his fleeting moments in the presence of Gol and Maia.

Yet, under that darkness he caught something familiar, something that made him think of sand and sun and wind through his fur. He pushed the grate out and leaned out of his hole in time to see the two retreating figures, and his eyes narrowed in thought at the closer of the two.

Long hair, dirty blond—or maybe just blond and dirty—caught his vision, familiar in ways it shouldn't have been. The gait was similar, too, but not quite _right_…

But no, that couldn't have been Jak. That person had been talking, something Jak had never been capable of in the entire time Daxter had known him—and that was quite a long time.

The youth sighed and shook his head, reaching up to rub his eyes with one small gloved hand. "I must be sleep-deprived. Haven't seen a Jak hallucination like that in almost six months…" He straightened, shifted the weight of the charging pack on his back, and put the grate back in place before heading off through the one just across the hall.

"Ah well, I've got work to do."

He was certain this was where Erol had taken Jak, he just had to find him. This wasn't the first time he had slunk through these halls, but this time he was here legally, and had been given temporary clearance to check levels he hadn't dared touch before.

It had already been so long, part of him—mutinously—insisted that they had done to Jak what they did to all the prisoners that didn't break, murmured that his body had long since sunk to rest forever in the Water Slums. He ground his teeth and pushed back the thought. Jak was alive, he knew it. He could feel it, he'd felt it for over a year, ever since they were separated.

Jak was alive. He just had to find him.

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak closed his eyes and shook his head roughly as the something tickled his senses. Some familiar smell, sound, a feeling in his chest—or a weight on his shoulder, maybe?—bringing a rush of unwelcome emotion to his thoughts.

He heard something scrape behind him, metal-on-metal, and almost turned to look. But Erol was talking again, and he was getting close to his break off point, so he didn't bother. It was probably just a rat anyway—Precursors knew there were plenty of vermin in the walls here, and though Jak himself had never actually seen any of them he heard their mad scrapings between the walls on the nights he couldn't sleep.

That was all it was. That was all it could be.

He paused, realizing he had lost track of the number of doors since they turned the corner, and took a quick backward glance to count—when he did, there was nothing behind him to have caused any noise. Nothing at all. And for some reason that made his heart sink.

No time to feel bad now—there never was, he thought. Never time for anything but fighting and hurting and pushing forward on orders he didn't understand to do something that was more than futile.

He bit his tongue, counted the doors, and kept moving.

Three doors. Two more until he broke away.

"…Don't you think, Jak?" Erol completed, a question Jak couldn't possibly know the answer to. He had no idea what the man had even been talking about.

His response was reflexive. "What?"

Erol clicked his tongue. "Oblivious again." He folded his arms and shook his head slowly in disappointment before slanting his eyes back on the trailing youth. "I was just talking about how you take extremely well to blue-treated dark eco. Better than any of the others, that's for certain. It gives quite the rush, don't you think?"

The boy gave a noncommittal grunt in reply, not really understand what Erol was talking about. Flickers of memory—pale blue goggles and hair that should have been brown, Praxis in perfect focus—surfaced, but he couldn't arrange any of them into proper order. Any save one.

_"I want you to fight them."_

He ground his teeth and focused on keeping count. One more door.

_"We never told you to kill them…"_

But it had been too easy, hadn't it? Too much, too quickly, too easy to kill rather than just fight. A punch to the face shattered skulls and snapped jawbones, a kick snapped legs in two with little effort, a slash of claws parted skin and muscle and sinew like liquid. It had been too easy not to avoid killing anyone.

He took a deep breath, dizzy as dark eco crackled around his clenched fists and sparked behind his teeth, and noticed just in time that they had reached the final door.

Jak clenched his eyes shut for a split second, pushing back the violet electricity burning inside them, and then bolted down the hall to his left.

The Captain spun on his heel and shouted after the boy, but Jak had no intention of stopping. He would teach Erol what folly it was to think he understood his captive enough to keep them unbound, or he would die trying. He was not going through another of those torture sessions, not now and not ever. He had made a decision—for the first time, between the world and himself, he chose the latter. It was time to be selfish, time to protect himself from harm and leave the world to its own devices.

If he made it out—when he made it out—and if he was in good enough health to keep moving—when he was recovered enough to keep moving—he would come back here and fight. Come back and do what he had promised himself, promised the twenty-seven ID cuffs in his room. Praxis would die and Erol would pay.

But he had to get out of here first.

He dared a backward glance as he rushed onward, and found Erol hot on his trail. Erol was fast, Jak knew that, and stronger than he was without dark eco enhancing his abilities; but Jak was small, nimble where Erol's age had long since stiffened muscles into moving in a particular pattern. He had the upper hand, in this case.

His bare feet slapped against the metal so hard it rattled the bones from his heel up to his knee, and he was starting to get short of breath. Erol, he realized, had regular meals and slept at a decent hour, and he didn't have some portion of his own personality musing on how it would be easy to just double back and tear off the arms of his pursuer. He could do it before any other guards even got there, long before anyone could do anything about it. And then they'd find him, dying or dead, and Jak would be long gone. It would be easy.

Easy like killing those other prisoners. Too easy.

Jak kept running.

Take the hall to his left, then his right, then straight—one more turn and two more doors and he'd be at the room with the window.

"I didn't want to do this, Jak!"

Just keep running. He had to keep running.

Sound exploded behind him and something stabbed deep into his leg, shooting out the front of his thigh in a streak of red light. The familiar sizzle in his veins made him aware that it had been eco—concentrated red eco? Where had these people learned to control such a thing?—and the flare of pain forced the realization that he was wounded. Heat flowed down his leg and the air was heavy with the flavor of blood.

He had to keep moving. He bit down the pain and forced another step, then another—just turn this corner and make it past those two doors and he would be out of here.

Another sound, just like the first, tore at his hearing. Another shot, hot and scarlet as the first, hit his other leg mid-step—this time shoving straight through bone, breaking it instantly. Jak's left foot hit in the floor at last, and both legs crumpled under his weight. He jaw cracked against the floor as he struggled to catch himself, blood screaming in his ears and eco screaming in his mind. The traces of red that his body had absorbed in the two hits surged through his veins, meeting with the dark already circulating and forming something that made breathing feel like glass in his chest.

_"—Not red, that would do more damage in conjunction with dark eco than it does on its own—"_

The Sage of Precursor Technology had said that, months and a lifetime ago, and at last Jak understood. The scarlet howled through him, ricocheting through muscles and ligaments like some bouncing toy thrown into too small a space. He bit back a scream, eyes wide a frenzied as he struggled to push himself up, looking down at his hands as scarlet light flashed just under his skin, which flickered back and forth between tan and blue-tinted white.

Erol came to a halt just short of even with the youth, not daring to come any further when he noticed the impossibly quick changes flickering over the young man's form. Muscles expanded and contracted with such speed it must have torn tissue along they way, streaks of white running through his hair in a heartbeat, only to be replaced with emerald-gold an instant later.

Jak opened his mouth, breath heaving and agonizing, his entire body white-hot with pain as the red eco fought to join with the black in his system. His vision shifted between crimson-clouded and perfect clarity, never finding the medium that he had been born with. His hearing heightened and fell with such speed he feared something in his head would burst; he could hear his heartbeat and Erol's, hear something moving in the walls and a thousand footsteps above and below, hear the howling of wind not two hundred yards away.

He was so close.

Erol finally came close, taking hold of the boy's head by the very band he had provided and tilting it back. He saw the impossible flashing between black and blue—both tinted scarlet, and gave a growl. "Damn it, Jak, why can't you just channel eco like everyone else!"

Jak gave a raspy whimper of pain as Erol pulled a familiar needled syringe from the pouch on his belt and drove it deep into the youth's neck, pushing down on the pump to flood his veins with the translucent fluid inside.

The entire world froze as the liquid went to work. Jak could see the anger—and was that disappointment?—in Erol's eyes, the faint glow in the older man's skin that proved that he had channeled some sort of eco himself not long ago—probably during the chase—and the light glinting off every individual hair on his head.

Jak took a breath—a breath that almost didn't hurt—and felt his eyes roll back in his head as time returned to its normal flow. Erol caught him as he fell, holding him tightly, and the youth could taste his captor's anger in the air as the world fell to oblivion.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	10. Pushing The Limit

**Author's Note: **Yayz an update! I guess I could warn you about the graphic content of this chapter, but if any of you have read this far then you know what it's like. This chapter's not really anything special in that respect.**  
**

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Ten: Pushing the Limit**

Daxter heaved a sigh as he signed the invoice, passing it over to the guard to take the main sheet, leaving him the yellow carbon-copy for his records. "I'll be back every two or three months for about a year, just to make sure they don't come back," the orange-furred youth explained. It was policy to do at least two follow-up visits after the basic extermination, but Daxter planned on more than that—he needed an excuse to come back here without risking death or dismemberment.

There had been no sign of Jak. No hint of his scent or scrap of his clothing, no cell that felt like Sandover—he was sure Jak's would, positive that he would carry the feeling with him—and no bed with the sheets and blankets reversed, as the ottsel's best friend had always preferred to sleep. No sign of him ever being here.

He was beginning to wonder if he was wrong, if Jak had been taken somewhere else. Erol had said the Baron wanted Jak—could the young hero have been carried off to the palace? Daxter had never managed more than a preliminary examination of the massive tower in the heart of the city, and even then it had only been the lower levels. He couldn't make it up any of the elevators to the more habitable sections of the palace, and didn't dare to try climbing up an empty shaft—Precursors knew there were plenty no longer in use—for fear of falling, being crushed or being discovered by one of the repair teams.

So he had limited himself to scoping out the prison. And it had led him nowhere.

The unmasked Krimzon Guard returned the carbon copy of the invoice, tucking his original into a file folder on the corner of his desk. "Do you really think it'll take a whole year to make sure they place is clean?"

Daxter nodded, assuring the man that it was entirely necessary. "Those things are stubborn as hell, not to mention hard to catch. I found a clutch and got rid of it, but there's no telling that's the only one." He sat down—on the man's desk—and pointed to the map inlaid in the metal. "The biggest concentration was here, on the third level, but the clutch was here, in the first level basement. The whole place is flooded pretty badly, too. You should start posting small patrols down there to keep an eye out for the bugs." Daxter knew that the man had at least some sway over the patrols—the tattoos on his face and ears proved that much, where the youth could read them—and he intended to use that to his advantage.

"But we already have a whole unit that does rounds down there," the brunet said, brow furrowing.

"Thin it a little. If there are a lot of people down there it'll just scare the bugs into moving up a level or two. Next thing you know they could be in the ammo dump, the high-security cell block, or even the barracks." He stood up again, folding the invoice and tucking it into the plastic container attached to the side of his pack. "It's a good idea to keep the patrols slim, but not remove them altogether—if anyone sees anything, anything at all, give my boss a call and I'll come back to get rid of 'em."

"Thanks a lot," the guard said with a heartfelt smile. "You really don't know how much this is going to help the Guard."

Daxter grinned. "Probably not."

**OOOOOOOO**

"Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you're in, boy?"

Praxis?

"If you were anyone else—anyone at all—Erol would have killed you the moment you broke away."

What was he talking about?

"But, lucky for you, you're not anyone else."

Jak's vision cleared, and with it came a surging pain in his legs. He gasped at the lancing heat, dizzied by its intensity, and realized a moment too late that there was some sort of translucent mask affixed over his mouth and nose. The flavor of the air pushed through that mask was unmistakable—memories of Misty Island, early in the morning before the violet-tinted fog had settled down over the sea, rushed through his thoughts.

Samos had said the mist that the forbidden isle was named for was dark eco that had, over the years, made its way through the fine cracks and chinks in the silo set into the heart of the island. Heated by the sun after so long in complete cold had turned the liquid to a fine haze, potent enough to kill and to taint, but easily avoidable.

He took a deep breath and almost choked on the air, fighting back a coughing fit that tore away at his lungs. Another breath, forced through the hacking, and the pain subsided for an instant. He couldn't avoid the rush of relief at the momentary comfort.

The youth remembered the look of relief on Gol's face when he took a breath of the foggy air on Misty Island, how the pain had faded from his deep scarlet eyes for a split second, and felt instantly sick to his stomach.

It appeared he was turning out to be Gol after all.

Praxis leaned over him. "You really don't know what you've gotten yourself into, do you?" The Baron's words were taunting, arrogant and painful to hear. Jak knew at his captor's tone that his attempted escape could not have come at a worse time for either of them, and cursed himself for not waiting just a little longer, just one more treatment—

He cried out—the noise more like a bark than a scream—when Praxis prodded one of his legs, causing the pain to escalate to dizzying levels.

At least the red eco was almost completely gone from his system now; it still burned his lungs a little when he inhaled—though the pain swiftly faded when the mist reached his insides—but he no longer felt it in the tips of his fingers or surging around under his skin.

He had been warned against this.

_"It's like you constantly have your foot on the gas. You need to learn to hit the brake sometimes, or sooner or later you're going to crash."_ Calloused fingers, pale in spite of the constant sun, brushed his knuckles. Green eyes went dark with some secret knowledge. _"I don't want to have to watch you crash, Jak."_

He had smiled and waved a hand, promising that he would be fine—what could being able to channel eco possibly do to hurt him? He had spent hours jumping between the ground and blue eco vents; danced through the green until scars from his childhood faded to nothing; shaped clusters of yellow into stars and suns and planets before throwing them high in the air and watching them burst; reveled in the rush of red through his body, certain he could take on anything. What, he had wondered, could any of them possibly do to hurt him?

He knew now. He had crashed, burned and broken himself from the inside out.

At least Keira hadn't been there to see it.

"Don't you have anything to say?"

Jak opened his eyes again, glancing down the reclined chair he was strapped to, taking stock of the thick metal spike driven into his left leg—the broken one—and the line it connected to, dark eco that sparkled with hints of green. Green-treated dark eco, just like Erol had claimed they used to repair his vocal cords.

Praxis followed the youth's gaze and chuckled dryly, coming around the chair and flicking the spike with one thick finger. Jak's vision went white with pain for an instant as the shifting of metal against the bone shattered any sense of calm he had felt. 

"Hurts, doesn't it?" The Baron said evenly. "It's driven right into the bone. I would have preferred to use straight green, but it looks like your body can't take any eco aside from dark anymore, so we had to settle with green-treated." He turned, fixing his single burnt-sienna eye on the youth, and glared. "You're lucky you're worth so much. If not, I would have killed you myself a long time ago."

"Why don't you?" Jak ground out. Praxis stared, taken aback, and the teen spoke again. "Why don't you kill me? It's obvious I'm never going to be what you want me to, so why bother?"

Praxis took a breath, and angry flush creeping up the little skin he had visible. He tapped the spike lightly, just enough to make Jak's vision blur. "Because, Jak, I know you can take orders. I've seen what you can do, and you're going to make one fine weapon when we're done with you."

"I won't do this," Jak asserted through clenched teeth. "I won't kill for you, Praxis. Not again." His eyes narrowed, flashing black. "The only people I ever intend to hurt are you and Erol."

"If a soldier cannot learn to use his weapon in such a way that it won't turn on him," Praxis whispered, voice an angry hiss, an oath, a blow to Jak's psyche, "then he was never a soldier to begin with." He reached out to toy with one of the dials on the face of the contraption the line of green-treated eco connected to, never taking his eye from the youth. "And I'm quite the soldier."

Praxis spun the dial as far as it would go, and Jak screamed at the top of his lungs as burning fluid flooded his bones.

**OOOOOOOO**

Erol sighed as he looked the broken youth over, shaking his head. "He's a giant bruise, Baron! What did you do?"

Praxis smirked, and the Krimzon guard knew that it had been a matter of pride, whatever it was. "I just sped up the healing process a little. The bruises are fading by the minute—watch, there goes another one." Erol turned just in time to see a patch of skin pale out to ashen white, then darken to a proper tan once more. "It will bring up his stamina, in the long run."

Erol sighed, but held his peace regarding the treatment of his captive, instead turning and gesturing for a small metal crate to be carried in by the guard standing outside the door. "I brought another batch of the blue-treated stuff, double last time's dose." Yellow eyes narrowed. "Although Vin seems to be less than agreeable lately—he was extremely reluctant to part with this. I think he's up to something, sir."

The Baron gave his second a disbelieving look. "Vin? _Vin_, up to something?" Praxis let out a loud laugh. "Are we thinking of the same person?" Erol folded his arms and stared at his superior impatiently. Praxis sighed and waved a large hand. "Vin would never have the guts to do anything besides dream." He paused, arching his one eyebrow. "Actually, I'm not even sure he does that anymore."

"I don't trust him. He's seen too much—he already knew too much even before we started this project."

"Well, he does have the highest blue eco channeling abilities on record," Praxis reminded the younger man. "We couldn't very well leave him out in the slums to join the Underground, could we?"

"But, sir—"

He sighed in annoyance. "Fine! If he's bothering you that much, have him reassigned. Send him to the Drill Platform or the Dig or something." He paused. "No, wait; make him foreman at the Strip Mine. They've needed a replacement out there for months."

Erol gave a short bow. "Thank you, Baron." He straightened and turned his gaze to the unconscious youth on the Baron's other side. "In the meantime, though, I believe we have some work to do."

**OOOOOOOO**

_He's awake, sir._

A deep breath.

_Keep your eyes open._

Why wouldn't he? His eyes were open, seeing and learning and understanding, he had no urge to close them. He pushed himself up to a sitting position, looking between the two figures standing on either side, and waited for one or the other to speak.

_You still take orders, don't you?_

"Of course I do." His voice tasted electric as it pushed through his mouth, ricocheting off teeth and bouncing out in a gravelly crackle.

_Do you remember last time I had you fight?_

His chest seized, some painful emotion that he couldn't quite place surging through his heart. He had done something wrong, last time. Something that hurt him inside, made him feel sick. He had wanted to throw himself into a wall at full force, last time, just to clear the images from his head. Why? It had been easy, why should he have felt so badly about doing as he was told?

"Yes," he replied. "I remember."

_This time I want you to do more than just fight. Can you do that?_

Chapped lips curved in a grin, eyes narrowed and flashed black. "It's easier that way."

**OOOOOOOO**

There were fewer this time. A dozen, maybe. Probably less. It had been even easier than last time; he didn't feel anything when blue or brown or amber eyes widened and lips parted, howls and pleas torn from damaged lungs over and over again.

Then Erol, yellow-eyed and tattooed and smiling, was there, and his hand was gripped firmly around a slim, pale arm, a wiry figure struggling against his hold for only a moment before being shoved against the white-haired and blue-eyed creature that had been a hero, long ago.

"Last one," Erol said.

He looked down at the skinny boy staring up at him. The hair was wrong, just barely, and the eyes seemed different, but it didn't matter. He blinked, and the colors of fire overtook the deep auburn, blue shadowed brown and it didn't matter that there had ever been differences in the first place.

Jak took a shaky step backward and shook his head. "No," he hissed.

"Last one, Jak. You have your orders."

"I don't care!"

Erol sighed, his eyes slid past the youth, and something cracked against the back of Jak's skull, snapping against hair and skin and bone, and he fell.

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak awoke as though from a nightmare, in his cot and in his cell, as safe he could get in this place. He wiped a hand at the cold sweat on his face, using his headband when he recalled its presence, and tried to calm his breathing.

Daxter, wherever he was right now, was safe. Jak was certain of it, more certain than he had ever been of anything in his life. Brown eyes and too-dark hair flashed in his thoughts, the scent blood and the taste of fear, and he jerked. Leaning forward on his meager bed, holding a hand over one eye when pain pounded behind it, Jak's long hair fell forward over his shoulders as they began to shake. He ground his teeth, fighting back a strangled sound of hurt that tore free from the back of his throat.

No. Daxter was safe, he hadn't hurt him. He had said no, refused and swore to never harm that too-familiar face. No matter what they said to him, no matter what they did to him, that was one order he would never complete.

"I think you might be relapsing."

If Erol had just walked in or been there all along, the young man couldn't say. The Captain stood there now, though, leaning back against the wall to one side of the door with a manila file folder in his hand, reading over the numerous papers inside. "We used a higher concentration of blue-dark eco than we have before, though…"

Yellow eyes rose from perfect white parchment and the man grinned. "You've been out for almost two weeks," he hissed, voice like liquid metal. "Tell me, Jak, when you're unconscious for so long, when you're only asleep from eco shock, do you dream?"

Blue eyes and orange hair—or fur, maybe it was fur—and a high voice that howled in pain, screaming for help over and over and over…

The youth met his captor's eyes. "No."

**OOOOOOOO**

"You really should eat something, Jak."

"I'm not hungry." He arched an eyebrow, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall beside the commander. "Is that really much of a surprise?"

Erol thought for a moment, pursing his lips slightly, then shrugged. "I suppose not." He tilted his head sideways, one ear cocking downward. "The last thing I want is for you to starve to death and leave Praxis with me as his only willing subject."

Jak let out a scoff, turning to face the older racer. "I'm willing?"

The Dark Eco Captain smirked. "You've never met our basis for comparison."

It was moments like this that left the former hero most unsettled outside the recent assessments; another of Erol's masks, this one more similar to a frustrated older brother than a murderer and a rapist. This was the one mask that Jak couldn't gauge, the only facet of Erol's being that he was entirely incapable of predicting. The last several months had given him plenty of time to get used to this recent development in his captor's behavior, but the problem lay in the fact that Jak could never tell when this mask was going to fall, metal and glass clatter at the feet of his psyche, to be replaced by a darker, sharper expression and disposition.

It was almost as though Erol had divided his emotions so completely that they had formed their own separate sections of his soul, pseudo-personalities that the Crimson Guard flitted between like a hummingbird in the middle of a flower field. A hummingbird with very sharp teeth. And an interest in boys significantly younger than himself.

Jak had recently noticed, and was reminded at this moment, that in spite of their obvious age discrepancy there was little difference in size between them. Erol was maybe a fingerlength taller than Jak, and barely thicker in musculature in spite of the Captain's regular meals and the youth's regular torture sessions.

They were putting him through assessments almost weekly now, charging him and tossing him into rooms filled with people that probably didn't deserve to be in this place at all with orders simply to do more than fight. Jak, though he hated to admit it, was used to it now. Those people were better off dead anyway, he told himself. Death brought safety, the one thing they would never have in this horrible place.

"Actually, I have," Jak replied. "Remember my first assessment?"

Erol waved a hand, pushing off from the wall. "That was hardly a proper meeting. In fact, it was a bit of a fiasco if you ask me." He shook his head, brow furrowing. "You certainly caused a fair bit of trouble for the rest of us."

"You're still alive," he hissed through clenched teeth, blue in his eyes slowly eclipsed by violet-tinted black. "I'd say that means things went off pretty well."

"But there's someone else who's still alive, too," the older man whispered in reply, yellow eyes slanting back over his shoulder to meet black without a hint of trepidation. "And that poses quite a problem." He turned around on one foot, almost like a pirouette, and leaned forward to stand at proper eye-level with the young man. "So, when are you going to tell me who Daxter is?"

"When you're dying at my feet," he said, not even blinking.

Erol laughed. "That's _just_ the sort of answer Praxis likes to hear."

**OOOOOOOO**

Screams tore through the rank air, both electric and alive, ricocheting off a thousand panels of metal, distorting to inhuman roars and a song that sent shivers through the other prisoners. There was nothing quite like the screams of Praxis' last Dark Warrior, the only subject remaining after the recent escalation of assessments and treatments. There were whispers of him between cells, in the mess hall, in the dark places where the dead were thrown after he was through with them.

The other prisoners, the guard, the few assistants that transported the eco back and froth from treatment areas to the prison—all were absolutely terrified. If this thing ever got out, if Praxis and Erol ever lost control, the entire city would be at risk.

Erol repositioned the eco injector, massive spikes of tapered metal spinning as he evened out the levels and reached for the activation switch again. He hated this method—it was messy, loud and dangerous. The injectors themselves, the great huge needles the drove deep into Jak's chest as he writhed in his metal bonds, were too large to assure a complete flushing of dark eco upon deactivation. Because of this, there was often a bleeding of eco over the subject's skin when the injector was removed.

The head of the Krimzon Guard liked to keep the tainted energy contained at all times, whether it was in a plastic line or the veins of a seventeen-year-old boy didn't matter so long as there was no way for it contact his skin. This method of infusion made it impossible to keep that precious separation, and Erol didn't like it. That, among other things, was the reason he wore a proper tunic and slacks today rather than his normal jumpsuit—under those he wore the black protective bodysuit the young mechanic, Keira, had designed for him last year.

Really, though, what was wrong with the showers and the IV and the vapor? Sometimes the fiery-haired racer really had no clue where the Baron got his ideas…

Jak's eyes flew open and they weren't blue, or even black, but the brightest violet he had ever seen, glowing and inhuman and terrible. And Erol, for a moment, understood why the Baron was so fond of this method. He loved every minute of it.

The injection cycle finished and the Commander took hold of the bar bolted to the side of the apparatus, pulling to one side and then pushing upward, muscles straining until the machinery kicked in and finished the move. There were holes in Jak's shirt and trails of dark eco soaked into the fabric, great holes in his skin dying the violet fluid scarlet in tiny rivulets. 

The youth's breath was heavy, his eyes clenched tightly shut and his body twitching, jerking against his shackles. Erol reached down and pressed the switch beside the one binding Jak's right wrist, opening the thick band of metal, and instantly the teen's hand went to his chest. Clawing at cloth and skin, smearing eco and blood together into a mass of rancid odors, Jak gave a ragged whimper.

Erol folded his arms and smirked. Jak's wrist was sliced open where he had tugged against the shackle, and the wound on his upper left arm—left over from the assessment two days before, when he had gone after the Commander in place of Rune at the last minute—had reopened, staining white bandages deep red.

"Praxis wants to keep you on this one for at least the next month," Erol said. "I'm sure you'll get used to it eventually."

**OOOOOOOO**

Daxter stopped dead in his tracks as he made his way carefully over the piping that ran along the catwalk high above the central chamber of the Prison, ears pressed back against his head as a horrible scream tore through the quiet hum of machinery and air conditioning. He turned, looking down at the platform set in the middle of the room, and his eyes narrowed.

"Bastards," he spat, clenching a fist tighter about his shock-prod. He recognized the telltale violet spark of dark eco long before the scent reached him, and the realization of what was happening hurt even more than the screams had hurt his ears.

What Praxis was doing here was nothing short of evil. Whatever sick and twisted goal had him trying to make another Gol Acheron was beyond the ottsel's knowledge, but he knew that he didn't like it. He crawled forward, across a pipe toward the center of the room, and shimmied down a thick wire that hung a light from the ceiling to get closer. He could probably hit one of the feed lines with his prod from here, and that would be sure to put the machine out of commission for a while, at least long enough for that poor guy down there to take a breath that wasn't followed by a scream.

He looked down at the two people below; there was Commander Erol in his trademark blue and yellow, that stupid insect-like helmet pulled up to his hairline, but the machine was in the way of the other figure. Not that it mattered, not really—whoever it was, they didn't deserve this.

Erol reached up to adjust the injector at the same moment Daxter made the leap from his perch on the light to one of the power lines, and the sudden motion of his intended landing place caused him to miss. He scrambled to catch another line, another pipe, and managed to take hold of another light cord, sliding down and giving his hands a nasty burn under orange and yellow fur.

He winced, righting himself, and turned to see how close he was to the Commander, how much danger of being discovered he was risking. When he turned, though, he didn't even see Erol.

Instead, Daxter saw the young man on the metal chair—writhing and screaming and bleeding all over—and his heart stopped.

"Oh my god," he breathed, voice barely a choked gasp. "_Jak_?"

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	11. Total Overload

**Author's Note: **This chapter is cursed. Seriously. That's why it's taken so long to get written. So sorry for the insanely long wait.  
Also, apparently this needs to be said--this is NOT the final chapter. The final chapter will have a nice, clear THE END at the end of it. Or something similar. I don't know why everyone thinks this is the last chapter, but it isn't. There will be more.**  
**

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Eleven: Total Overload**

His hair was long, his skin paler than Daxter had ever seen it, and there were so many things that were painfully different about the young man not far below, but none of them were enough to overshadow the person underneath.

It was Jak. It had been almost two years, an eighth of the ottsel's life, since he saw that face or that hair, since he touched that skin or read those eyes in place of listened to a voice, but it was _Jak_.

And Jak was screaming.

_Jak_ was _screaming_.

"Holy…" Daxter rose to his hind legs and took hold of the line running up to the ceiling, taking a hesitant half-step backward over the warm metal capping the light. Jak was screaming. Making sound, broken and tormented though it was. He had a voice.

The Commander deactivated the injector and repositioned it away from himself and the youth, unbuckling one shackle and then pausing to whisper something in Jak's ear. Daxter watched as Jak's eyes snapped open and his expression morphed from one of agony to one of rage, and he turned the look on his captor.

"How about _you_ give it a try?" Jak growled, pulling at the shackle still on his left wrist as he attempted to sit up. He reached out, taking hold of Erol by his helmet in a motion so swift Daxter couldn't follow it, and slammed the older man's head into the side of the chair once, twice—the third time Erol's hand shot up to curl his gloved fingers tightly about the youth's bleeding wrist and twist it. He lifted his head to eye-level with Jak and hissed something Daxter couldn't hear.

He could smell the threat in it from here, though.

"Try it," Jak replied, giving a smirk that scared Daxter half to death, a smirk that reminded him of Gol. "You've never fought me without your lackeys or Praxis' tricks, Erol, and I'm starting to think it's because you know that if you ever do you're not going to walk away. You're a coward; Praxis' favorite little toy."

Erol released the boy's wrist, shoving him backward slightly, and took a step to stand out of his reach. "Be that as it may," he replied, seething, "you're no better. Would you like the running tally of how many prisoners you've killed in the last month, Jak?"

"Would you like to see how I did it?"

Daxter was terrified. He had made a thousand plans of what he would do when he found Jak, a thousand different situations with a thousand conclusions running through his head for almost two full years. This, though…this was Jak, most certainly so, but Praxis and Erol had done something to him, something that made him someone else at the same time. They had killed the noble bravery that had allowed him to defeat the Acherons so long ago, to become a hero to the people of their world, and left only this violent rage in its place.

The younger of the two Sandover heroes had seen Jak angry, that didn't bother him in the least, but for Jak—_his_ Jak—to talk about killing people like it was nothing, to actually see him attack another elf with such ferocity… It made Daxter sick to his stomach and brought the too-familiar sting of overwhelming emotion to his eyes.

"Precursors, Jak," he choked, staring down at the seething teen, this boy with his bloody tunic and too-long hair, "what have they _done_ to you?"

**OOOOOOOO**

"I _have_ seen, Jak. I probably remember it better than you do." Erol folded his arms again and shook his head once, stopping when pain surged through his skull. He felt a warm wetness on the left side of his forehead that clearly denoted the presence of blood, and the chill metal of his helmet pressed hard against the break in his skin. That would explain where the gash had come from in the first place—Jak's attack had caved in the Commander's helmet on one side and it was that that injured him. Helmet damage or no, though, he was going to have one killer a headache in a couple seconds.

Jak's eyes flickered between black and blue, obsidian and sapphire, and the Commander smiled. "You recovered a lot faster than I thought you would. Baron Praxis will be very happy to hear that." He spun on his heel and headed across the divide, waving a hand as he went. "I'll send a couple guards in to escort you back to your cell."

The youth ground his teeth, fighting to keep his canines from sharpening too much, to keep horns from driving their way upward through the pounding in his skull. _Not Erol,_ he told himself. _Not Erol, Praxis. Praxis first. _

Erol was gone, and Jak let out a sigh, closing his eyes and flopping backward onto the chair again, breathing deeply to steady his racing heart. Exhaustion settled over his limbs, and he remained complacent when four Guards came in a moment later and removed his shackles, dragged him from the chair, and half-carried him away.

"Praxis first," he whispered, eyelids growing heavy. "Praxis first."

**OOOOOOOO**

Daxter ran. Gasping and choking and fighting against the urge to scream at the top of his lungs, he scrambled through a pipeline and out into the lower levels, over the flooded passages and back out into the Haven City Slums. The dirty air assaulted his senses, cold and dark and so much worse than it had ever been. It sent a chill through his fur the likes of which he had never felt, worse than that horrible night he had been stuck out in the rain and ended up too sick to walk for three days, worse than the first Haven winter he had experienced, when a gale came down from the mountains and assaulted the city, bits of snow and slush forcing their way through the shield wall that covered the huge city in a great dome of blue and yellow eco.

He had lost his pack and shock-prod somewhere in the Prison; he couldn't say when he had sloughed it off, but the lack of a weight on his back was proof of its absence. A part of him noted that he would have some serious explaining to do to his boss when he headed back to work tomorrow, that he would either have to go back and get the pack or pay for a new one, but the insight was so quiet it was barely noticeable.

He realized suddenly that he was still running, and stopped just before crashing headlong into the dead end of an alley. He dropped to all fours, then rolled to lean his back against the wall, breath still shaky and fur on his cheeks damp. "Dammit," he whimpered, reaching up to rake a gloved hand over his eyes.

His hands were shaking. His entire _body_ was shaking. He pulled his hind legs up and curled his tail around his feet, becoming as small as possible, and wrapped his spindly arms about himself as though seeking some warmth he would never find.

They had broken Jak, shattered him into a thousand pieces and put them back in the wrong places, used their own shards to fill in the gaps intentionally left in his being. There was no doubt that that angry young man was Jak, but it was a Jak that Daxter had never met, a Jak that should never have existed. A Jak that had endured two years of dark eco-riddled hell at the Baron's command.

Daxter ground his animalistic teeth with a growl and clenched his eyes shut, then threw back his head and howled at the top of his lungs. His voice was a broken wail, a shriek and a sob and a thousand things he had never wanted to show.

"_Damn you, Praxis_!"

Back in the Prison, Jak rolled over on his cot and pulled his ragged pillow over his head to block out the sound of someone in the distance sobbing.

**OOOOOOOO**

It had taken some time to get hold of, but once Erol got the idea into his head to check the outdoor surveillance video from the day Jak had arrived, it was only a matter of time before the disc was slipped into his hands.

Two years in the archives had weathered the disk a bit, degraded the file ever so slightly—no one ever went back and watched the outdoor surveillance videos unless the Underground were somehow involved—but it was still in decent enough condition.

The youth's arrival in Haven was a mystery quite different than the one Erol was researching, but the Commander couldn't refrain from replaying the flash of blue-white light that heralded Jak's arrival several times over. At first the street was almost empty, a normal day, then there was a flash up above that surged down and down and down until it struck; the instant it contacted the metal of the walkway it seemed as though an outer bubble burst, and the remaining light solidified into to tumbling figures. The light faded in the space of a heartbeat, and there was Jak. It was amazing, maddening to watch, impossible on so many levels, and yet clearly defined in moving colors on the monitor display.

But that _wasn't_ what Erol was looking for.

He'd had his suspicions for a while, but they seemed about as possible as Jak's sudden appearance in the city, so he had paid them no heed. Now, though, things were accelerating too much, he had to go with his instincts here.

They were running out of time.

So he played the footage, over again and again, until he was _positive_ that his initial suspicions were correct. It made no sense, there was _no_ resemblance between this little beast and Rune, but there was no doubt in Erol's mind now—after hearing Jak's nightmarish whisperings while he slept, his insane babble during some sessions—that this was the missing piece of the puzzle, the key to breaking Jak once and for all.

Torture hadn't done it.

Rape hadn't done it.

This, he was certain, would.

"_Don't worry, Jak!" _called the creature on the screen, voice distorted slightly in the degraded footage. _"I'll save you before you know it!"_

Erol pressed a switch in command for the image on the screen to freeze, and with a smile he brushed his pale fingers over the slim orange figure darting off out of sight.

"Hello there, Daxter," he breathed, yellow eyes narrowing. "We meet at last."

**OOOOOOOO**

"We're running out of time," Erol said quietly, eyes narrowing as they rose from the most recent reports to look up at the Baron. "I know he's made progress, but my men can _not_ handle another attack wave like the one that hit the Drill Platform last week."

Praxis ground his teeth, thick fingers clenching about the armrests of his chair. "Do you actually think I don't know that, Commander?" he hissed. The man heaved a sigh and took back the reports, casting his eye downward. "How long until his next assessment?"

Erol cocked his head slightly to one side, a smirk playing at his lips. "Any time you're willing to sit in and watch, Baron."

**OOOOOOOO**

Jak rolled over in his cot, turning his back to the door. "Go _away_, Erol."

"I just want to talk to you," Erol said from the doorway, shaking his head slightly in disapproval. "I'm sure you'd appreciate some good company. You must be going mad in here all alone."

The youth almost laughed. _Going_ mad? As if he wasn't there already. A sane person didn't hear voices murmuring in their head whenever the world went quiet, even for a moment. A sane person didn't wake up in the morning and wonder if they had killed anyone the day before, and if so how many and how, under what treatment and what orders and _why_ was this happening to _him_?

Jak ground his teeth and pushed back the renegade thought. Too often that thought had been trying to take root, too often had he woken in the middle of the night to hear himself asking, pleading for someone—anyone—to just tell him _why_.

He had been a hero, many lifetimes ago. He had saved the entire world from a madman bent on twisting everything with the liquid darkness that flowed just barely under his control. He had been _good_.

So why was this happening? What could he possibly have done for the Precursors to decide he deserved this? Was Gol not truly meant to die, and was this payment for killing him? Was this recompense for pretty much destroying Daxter's life with his senselessness?

He had been a warrior of light! Why had he been the one chosen to go through this hell, this darkness?

And why had no one come yet to—

Again he forced the thought to break off, this time prematurely. He would _not_ doubt his friends. They were looking for him, searching for him with all their might. They were worried and afraid for him, and they prayed for his safety at every chance they had.

They were out there, and that knowledge was keeping him alive.

"So quiet, so deep in thought," Erol crooned, stepping fully into the room and heaving a sigh. "Poor thing, you must be terribly hurt right now. Two years it's been since we found you, since we chose you…"

Jak faced the wall and tried not to listen.

"…and since Daxter abandoned you."

The youth was upright in an instant, turning to face Erol with wide eyes, features pale with shock.

Erol smiled. "Yes, I know all about that. _'I'll save you before you know it,'_ he said. He promised to come get you, to rescue you from Praxis, from prison, from _me_." Both orange eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "But he hasn't yet, has he? Not even a sign that he's even looking for you."

"Y-You're wrong…" Jak hissed.

"Am I?"

A long moment passed in silence, Jak's eyes slipping ever lower, until they were finally rooted on his lap, on his hands clenched into tight fists about the tattered fabric of his pants. The tap of Erol's approaching footsteps cut through the quiet, and the redhead leaned in so close Jak could taste the heat of his breath.

"Daxter is never coming for you, Jak," the Commander whispered. "Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Daxter doesn't care about you anymore. No one does."

"You're _wrong_," Jak asserted, louder this time.

"No one is looking for you, no one is going to save you, no one even knows you exist anymore."

Jak ground his teeth and clenched his eyes shut, just willing the older man to stop, the whispers in his head now practically screaming for his death.

"No one knows," Erol continued, "except for me. You're mine, Jak. You've been mine since I found you on the street, since I took you and your little friend ran away, never to return." A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "I'm sorry, Jak, but no one is coming for you, no one wants you anymore. No one but me."

Jak shook his head, holding both hands to his head, to the pounding pressure in his skull where his horns were fighting to push up through his hair. "You're _wrong_! Daxter _is_ looking for me and he _is_ going to save me and I'm _not_ going to be yours forever!"

"Why would he want to save you?" Erol replied, eyes narrowing, lips parted in a horrible grin. "After everything you've done, everything that's been done to you, why would _anyone_ want you?"

Jak let his hands drop, looked at Erol, and shouted a response before he could think better of it; his voice almost broke, the strain tautening the muscles in his face, hands clenched into fists so tight they shook. "_You_ still want me! That has to mean _something_!"

Erol's grin broadened. "Oh yes, Jak," he reached out and cupped the young man's chin in his hand, leaning in so close their faces were a hair's breadth from touching, "that means more than I think you know."

Something stabbed into Jak's midsection and he jerked away, reaching his hands and casting his eyes downward to pull out and see the hypodermic needle, practically a dart, jammed into his skin.

His brow furrowed in confusion. "A tranquilizer?" Sparks flashed in his mouth when he spoke, snapping against his tongue and barely singeing the inside of his cheeks. "N-Not enough to knock…to knock me out…all the way…"

Erol grinned, lifted a hand, and snapped his fingers. Jak thought he saw the door open, but his vision was beginning to twist as he fought against the darkness at the corners of his vision, to shift and change into the eyes of that monster that was him, that he was, that he didn't want to be and would always be for as long as he lived—

"Tell Praxis we're ready," Erol told the figure in the doorway—not the doorway, the hallway—how did they get into the hallway?

The Commander's grin was predatory, and Jak could smell the stink of his arrogance as he began to back away. A strong hand—a guard, maybe? Jak couldn't see anything there but he assumed it was a guard—took hold of Jak's arm and began to pull him off down the hall.

Erol turned and started off the other direction, his voice carrying back over his shoulder as he walked away. "I'll go get the boy."

Jak blinked, and the universe shifted. He was in another room, larger but not as large as he remembered, and his body was screaming again. Something was tugged out of his hand, something cold and metallic and sharp—the method of his most recent infusion?—and he let out a sigh of relief.

He took a deep breath that should have been cleansing but wasn't, that could never come close to cleansing a monster like him, and sapphire-charged violet lightning arced between his teeth as he inhaled, flickering over his skin.

The youth turned to the familiar figure that now stood on his left; Praxis met the glance, and when he spoke Jak could feel the words ricocheting off the very _air_ around him.

_Last one, Jak. Last time, last try. _

Erol was there, too, on the right, grinning and _glowing_ with power, with pleasure in his condescension. When he spoke it was quiet, and traveled from him straight to Jak, so sharp and crisp and close that Jak doubted Praxis even heard him.

_Make me proud._

A part of him wanted to rip out his own heart when his own voice, slightly graveled and a little deeper than normal but clear as a bell nevertheless, replied without a hint of trepidation, without a flicker of forethought.

"I will."

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**


	12. All Systems Down

**Author's Note: **And I thought chapter eleven was cursed. This one's taken over a year, and I'm still not sure I'm completely happy with it, but DAMMIT I am GOING to finish this fic if it's the last thing I do! (But no, this isn't the end.)

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Twelve: All Systems Down**

There was only one this time. One small, shivering, pale figure; one heartbeat pounding so fast and so loud he could hear it reverberating off the walls; one staggering intake of breath and shaky exhalation. And this one was _familiar_. So familiar it burned his eyes, seared the back of his mind like white-hot metal was being tempered in his skull.

Freckles and red hair and blue eyes—no, those were brown, they weren't blue, why weren't they blue? They should have been blue—and long, gangly limbs, hands too big for those skinny wrists—only no, one arm was wrong, elbow down plated in cold hard metal, fingers tarnished lengths of steel that didn't move quite right and how had he not noticed this sooner?

It was wrong. So wrong. It wasn't him, couldn't be him, would never be him. He wasn't coming, he'd forgotten, he didn't care. Jak was alone, always alone—no, not alone, there was Erol. Always Erol. Which was worse than alone because Erol burned and touched and laughed and twisted and made Jak want to scream, made him die and die and die over and over but always—always!—brought him back, even though he never wanted to.

Jak took what might have been one step and might have been a dozen, bottomless violet-black eyes fixed on the figure in the center of the room, ash-white hair brushing back and forth against his neck and shoulders as he moved, skin crawling and muscles twitching with each breath, each motion, each touch.

This...this wasn't Erol, but it was still wrong. Wrong eyes, wrong arm, wrong voice and wrong heartbeat and wrong smell and wrong wrong _wrong_—

He was there in an instant, in front of what couldn't be who it might have been. It was wrong, but not wrong enough.

The one with eyes that weren't blue and a hand that didn't match didn't pull back, just breathing harder and fighting to swallow and staring, always staring, maybe crying, eyes wide and pleading _no don't do this please don't do this you don't have to do this please don't I don't want to die_ _please_...

Jak reached down, rough, and grabbed him by the arm. Yanked him to his feet. Leaned in close, smelled him, listened to his breathing, tasted his fear. Afraid, always afraid, but it was his fault this time, all his fault; maybe it was payback, recompense for what Jak had done to him, for what he'd reversed somehow—

No, this wasn't him. This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Everything was wrong here, but this was the worst. It was _too_ wrong, at first, to ignore. The moments passed in stillness, silent save for gasping and low, growling breaths.

This was wrong.

...But it was close enough.

Jak held his arm tight, angling his head down, back a bony curve as he bent so he could look _up_ at him instead of down, be less intimidating, be less something to fear and more something to remember.

He remembered, right? Blue eyes and pale skin and freckles and red hair and white, white teeth and eco, oh eco, thick in the back of his throat the closer they got, heavy and bitter in the air around them as they leaned to look down, down, down...

He had to remember. He couldn't forget, not after that. No one could forget.

Deep violet eyes cast upward through bone-white lashes, twisting patterns of eco-white curling over his skin as he opened his mouth to show sharp teeth--too sharp, they hurt and they _hurt_ and his throat hurt and he couldn't talk like this could he?

"Daxter," he hissed, low and gravelly. He smiled, a little. A light kindled behind his eyes, not blue as sapphires and bright as the sun but electric violet and terrible. "Do you remember...?"

He swallowed—and his eyes were blue now, they had to be blue, so wide and so, so afraid to proved Erol was right, Erol was _always_ right—and shook his head. "I-I—" He whimpered. "P-P-Please d-don't..."

"You _promised_," Jak reminded him, smiling still with narrowed eyes. "You said you'd save me."

Long black claws skated up Daxter's—not Daxter's—bare chest, over the scars and over the rise and fall of his ribcage. No trail this time, nothing that hurt, nothing but this gentle, familiar touch.

"Where've you been?"

"I-I don't—"

Jak leaned in closer, smile fading. "You _promised_ to save me. Before I knew it, before I noticed, before I had to _die_."

Daxter clenched his eyes shut and whimpered. "N-No, I d-d-didn't—I—"

"You don't care."

He didn't need to answer, Jak knew already. Erol said so. Erol was right, always right, always painful but always right. He knew. But it still struck him like a gauntlet to the face when Daxter—not Daxter!—swallowed thickly, mouth dry, and dared to shake his head.

It might have been no, you're wrong.

It might have been no, I don't understand.

It might have been no, I don't remember.

Jak's fingers traced up the curve of Daxter's neck, up to ever so gently cup his cheek. His thumb brushed lightly over those freckles, felt the muscles in his jaw tense at the contact.

It might have been any number of things.

But all Jak saw was no, I don't care.

He raked his fingers into Daxter's hair, fisting and pulling to tilt his head back as he straightened to glare down at him. "You left me here to pay me back. To make up for what I did to you." No questions, just cold, cruel certainty. "It's my turn, Daxter. This is worse than anything that ever happened to you, so much worse."

He hissed and leaned, mouth painfully close Daxter's pale, exposed neck.

"It's my turn to pay you back."

Jak opened his mouth as wide as he could, and then sharp teeth dove into ivory flesh. He felt tendons rip, tasted the blood—so much blood—and shivered when the trachea between his teeth collapsed inward.

Daxter screamed. Howled. He thrashed and struggled and gurgled and choked and bled and bled and bled while Jak bit harder, pushed deeper, swallowed and chewed and gnawed all he could.

It was a release. A horrible, wonderful release. It was almost two years of pain condensed into one instant, one sudden white-hot realization that Daxter needed to feel. He needed to know what he'd done, how he'd let Jak die again and again, how he'd hurt and thrashed and burned every cell in his body until they all _screamed_.

Then Daxter went still and the gurgling stopped. He went limp, loose in Jak's grip. Suddenly so very heavy, heavier than he should have been. Jak tore his mouth free, blood and bone and torn flesh smeared over his face, and looked down at the young man he held up by the hair.

And he felt _sick_.

He gagged and dropped the body—just a body, those closed eyes were dead but something in Jak howled that they were blue underneath, the hair was brighter than it looked, it was just the light, this was _him_ and he was _dead_ and it was _Jak's fault_.

Not even Jak's fault. Jak's doing. Intentionally.

He'd wanted Daxter to feel the pain and death that he'd been suffering for so long, now he'd gotten what he wished for.

And Daxter was dead.

Jak's eyes went wide, flashing back to blue, and he dig clawless fingers into his hair, clutching his skull as he stumbled back and just _screamed_.

**OOOOOOOO**

"And with that," Erol purred from his seat in the observation room, smiling and watching with no little pleasure, "he's ours." He looked to Praxis as he stood. "What do you think, should we run him through another injection cycle now, or wait a day or so for everything to sink in?"

"Now," Praxis ordered, stern. "We need him battle-ready as soon as possible."

Erol gave a short bow, hand to his chest. "As you wish, Baron."

**OOOOOOOO**

The rage was gone.

It was an interesting feeling, after this long, to not feel on the verge of killing someone with every heartbeat; every breath, every glance and every motion nothing more than forerunner and accelerant to the anger burning deep within him.

That anger has been doused, washed out with the blood of his best friend.

There was nothing to feel anymore, nothing to see.

Daxter was dead. Praxis won.

The end.

But it wasn't the end, because Erol—horrible, beautiful Erol, the only one that wanted him anymore, the only one that gave a damn—wouldn't let it end. The days passed quickly, blurring together into a mess of noise and color that Jak couldn't quite decipher, worse than the days after his throat was cut open and his long lost voice restored.

Erol came to get him in the mornings, early enough that sometimes Jak saw sunrise through the windows they passed—on those rare occasions that they passed windows. He half-led, half-dragged the young man to his different treatments. Mist every few mornings, injections every afternoon or evening. The daytime hours were spent sleeping, recovering, eating sometimes.

Sometimes Erol would take him somewhere different; to a _real_ shower, where he washed and brushed Jak's filthy, tangled hair, shaved his grizzled face and scrubbed clean his grey-tinted skin.

Other times Erol would beat him, kick and punch and scream why wasn't he fighting anymore, what was wrong with him, why his nails never turned to claws, why his eyes stayed forever blue, why he never spoke.

Jak just sat—or stood, or lay—there, silent.

Daxter was dead.

There was nothing more to do.

**OOOOOOOO**

"It's not that he isn't reacting to the treatments," Erol explained for the twelfth time, "it's that he isn't _reacting_. To anything. Like he's—I don't know—_broken_."

Praxis gave his second-in-command an even look. "I thought that was our goal."

With a shake of his head, Erol continued his pacing, back and forth and back and forth in front of Damas throne, the city stretched out below them covered in a haze of grey rain. "Not like this. We want him to be compliant, not _apathetic_." His frustration was obvious, hands clenched into fists at his sides, teeth grinding, footsteps harder and louder with each pass. "It's like he's not even _there_ anymore!"

"Have you spoken to Veger?" Praxis inquired, tone still level. There had been plenty of times when a soldier resisted conditioning like this—he only assumed that this particular subject was in a similar state of mind. It wouldn't work. He wouldn't let it work. Until he had proof that there was nothing they could do to make him into the monster he'd come so close to being, they were going to keep working at him.

"Of _course_ I've spoken to Veger," Erol retorted. The exasperation in his tone was almost enough to make Praxis want to slap him. That was _not_ how one spoke to their superior, much less the keeper of the only safe ground left against the Metalheads. "He says to up the treatments—even though we're already at five times the level we ever put _anyone_ through. Any more and he could just...disintegrate!" He gestured around with his hands, irritation more and more pronounced. "We _don't_ want another Gol Acheron, Baron. Not after what Veger's been able to research."

"Clearly." He'd done his own fair share of reading, and couldn't agree more with that statement. The days of sages were long past, but the knowledge they left behind was what drove this program, what made it possible to power the city, what kept the shield wall running. They couldn't very well follow their directions and repeat their research without paying heed to their warnings.

Praxis sat in thought for several minutes, long enough for Erol to go off on another tirade—something about how Jak didn't even react when he touched him anymore—then raised his hand for silence.

It took a beat before Erol noticed, and Praxis made a mental note. The good Commander was getting a little too full of himself for anyone's good...

"No more assessments. I want a copy of every overview for every injection cycle you put him through. At the end of the month, I'll step back in and watch one myself." His eye narrowed. "And tell Veger to do some more research—we need to know why this isn't working anymore."

Erol, obviously displeased with his orders but taking them all the same, lowered his head in a bow. "Yes sir." He straightened. Stood there for a minute, something on the tip of his tongue.

Praxis sighed. "If you have something to say, Commander, _say it_."

"...Are you going to ask _him_ about this?"

The Baron expression deepened, eye narrowing further, but suddenly distant.

"He _is_ the one that told us where to get Jak, how we could use him," Erol continued. "If anything, he should be punished for presenting us with damaged goods under the false pretense of a _gift_."

"Jak _is_ a gift," Praxis spat. "He's lasted longer than anyone else, hasn't he?" His voice dropped, deeper and quieter and darker than before. "If there's anything that can help us win this war, it's whatever that boy is turning into."

Another moment passed before Erol once again spoke.

"I hate to be the one the remind you of this, Milord—" He certainly didn't sound like he hated it. "—but the monster under his skin doesn't do us any good if he never lets it out."

**OOOOOOOO**

Being clean was nice, Jak realized. It wasn't nice enough, but it was nice. He didn't reek of sweat and blood anymore, just of the heavy, thick tang of dark eco. That wasn't nice. Also not nice was the face looking back at him from the mirror Erol had left him in front of for the moment. Too old, too pale, too different. Not nice.

His eyes moved, lazily, to catch Erol's as the Commander came back up to look over his shoulder. One hand moved up to rest lightly on his head, fingers buried in thick bicolored hair. "Time for another treatment, Jak."

Jak just looked at him, at his reflection, and didn't say a word.

"We're upping your dose again today."

Again, no response.

He watched, an understood with crystal clarity, as Erol's expression contorted, twisting into _rage_, and he fisted the hand in Jak's hair to yank him back, make him look at Erol properly.

"What is _wrong_ with you?!"

Jak just stared up at him, eyes wide and blue and blank, and said nothing. If Erol wanted him so much, he could have him. That didn't mean Jak had to care.


	13. Only a Moment

**Author's Note: **…It's been quite the ride, folks, but all good things come to an end. There will eventually be a "sequel" in the form of a collection of oneshots posted bit by bit, but for now…this is it. _Captive Voice_ exits stage left, _Jak II: Renegade_ enters stage right. Thank you all, goodnight.

**OOOOOOOO**

**OOOOOOOO**

**Chapter Thirteen: Only a Moment**

The months had passed faster than he'd thought they would, day after day just slipping past as he told himself over and over that he was almost ready, just a couple more days to work up the nerve, another week to be able to afford that tunic, another month until he could get those goggles made.

There was no more putting it off now. That realization should have filled Daxter with a sense of purpose, the kind he'd had as he scoured the Palace's lower levels and run through the prison time and time again, but all it did was made his stomach lurch.

Every minute counted, he was sure, but…well, he could tell himself that the days had just gotten away from him, that it was an accident, that the smog and lights had blurred his vision. He could tell himself that, and he tried, but deep down he knew he was lying.

He'd been stalling.

Daxter had found Jak, or at least what was left of him, and he had at his disposal the means to get him out. It wouldn't have been hard to organize a quick prison break on one of his other runs through the rows of cells and metal halls all reverberating with seemingly endless screams, but he just _couldn't do it_. He was too scared. Not of being caught, not of being hurt.

Daxter was afraid of Jak. And that just made him feel sicker with himself than he had since he finally stopped running, finally stopped to _breathe_ two years ago and realized that he'd just abandoned his best friend. Maybe even sicker than he'd felt back then.

But what was he supposed to do? He couldn't just…just _roll_ with this or some other stupid phrase for "coping" that he'd probably used more than could be considered healthy. He couldn't just accept the possibility—fact, a part of him whispered, _fact_—that his Jak was gone. And it was his fault. He liked to tell himself he couldn't do anything from the inside, he couldn't help if he'd been caught too, but Precursors _damn_ it he knew that wasn't true either.

If he'd been there, at least he'd have _been there_.

Maybe he couldn't have gotten him out before he turned into whoever and whatever he was now. Hell, if he'd been there then Jak never could have gotten that bad to begin with!

This was all his fault.

Which was why, finally, after what had to be months of putting it off and pretending the screams echoing through his dreams didn't belong to his best friend, Daxter steeled himself, stood up, and decided this was the day.

He wrote up his resignation. Took his pack, but didn't charge it—he'd just be dropping it anyway. He kept his security pass, only good for this one last run. And then he left.

It was his fault, but he was the only one that could fix it. This time there was no Samos to point him in the right direction or give him a knock on the head for making a mistake. There was no Keira to make the journey easier, to muse and plot and figure out the best way to make things work. There was just Daxter, all alone.

He wasn't a hero, not like Jak, but he thought he understood now what had driven Jak forward against Gol and Maia, even when things seemed beyond his ability to contend. He'd been fighting for Daxter, fighting for the chance to make up for the mistake that twisted his body and stolen his possibilities.

Now it was Daxter's turn to make up for his own mistake.

He swallowed thickly, shivering a little, stepped in through the prison entrance, flashing his pass to the desk worker at the front—familiar by now—with a forced grin, and headed off to face the man that used to be his best friend.

**OOOOOOOO**

The needles—huge and sharp and shining—spun in their holes, and he couldn't help but thrash. This was the longest injection cycle he'd ever been through, close to an hour long now, and though the eco _rattled_ inside him all he could think was that the injectors hadn't been driven in as far this time as normal. It was barely enough to break the skin, not enough to even do any lasting damage to his clothes.

Nonetheless, his shirt still caught on the metal as he arched and screamed, reflexively pulling and pulling and _pulling_ at his shackles, his entire body fighting to escape in spite of his mind reminding it time and again that it was impossible, there was no escape, and even if there were it wouldn't matter anyway. Daxter was dead, what was the point of getting out? What would the point be in finally—finally—taking Praxis down, if this monster he'd reshaped Jak into was still running free?

But, god, he could _hear_ them. The uneven pacing of Praxis to his left, the steady heartbeat of Erol at his feet, the impatience emanating off them both was almost tangible.

He heard Erol sigh, felt the vibrations in the air when he lowered his head. He thought he could hear the ringing of Erol's pulse off his helmet, the way the threads in his suit rubbed against one another when he breathed.

Everything was so sharp, so strong, such a high as he hadn't felt since his last assessment. Since he ripped out Daxter's throat. It was almost enough to bring him back, the promise of this kind of power always, dancing forever just under his skin, rank on his breath and black in his eyes.

"Damn it, Jak…" Erol whispered, and his voice was so full of disappointment Jak couldn't help but feel the sting. Erol was the only one left, the only one that cared, and at that moment, for the one moment, all Jak wanted was to please him. To hell with Praxis, Erol was the one that washing his back and brushed his hair and promised him safety and glory when all he could see was darkness and blood and god, oh god, pale hands in his hair and salt on the breeze and _he's not Daxter_ and _he'll never replace Daxter_ and _he touched you, he hurt you, you don't want his approval_.

But he did. For that split second when Erol's voice slanted downward, thick with remorse for the first time in Jak's recollection, that was all he wanted. He almost ground out an apology through the pain, but the sudden recollection of a red-haired head shaking and blue—not blue—eyes staring at him in fear froze the word in his throat.

"…You were so close."

Too close.

Jak choked down a breath, a final breath, and then the eco stopped. The injector let him go, he fell back onto his chair, his head lolled to the side, every muscle in his body went slack. The injection cycle was complete, and the feminine voice Jak knew to be the voice of the machines stated as much.

"Bio readings," she continued, unperturbed, "nominal and unchanged."

Praxis made a gruff sound in the back of his throat, and if Jak had any strength left in his body he would have winced when the shiver in the air collided with his skin.

"_Nothing_," the Baron spat.

He continued, but after a moment all Jak could hear was the sound of his own breathing, his own heartbeat. He felt a swell of what might once have been pride deep in his chest as he came down from the high—faster than he ever had before, Erol was right when he said Jak was _close_.

Praxis was right. There was nothing; not for months. Not a change, not a shift, not a spark in his mouth or a sliver of horn on his head. Jak was spent.

Erol's voice cut through the haze like a knife, sharp and too familiar. "He is surprisingly resistant to your experiments, Baron Praxis."

He was unhappy. Jak could hear it in his tone well enough, but he only ever called the Baron by name when he was discontent, when something didn't go his way. When he was disappointed.

"I fear the Dark Warrior Program has failed."

Jak felt the latent barb of a sting under his skin at that. This was it, then. That was why Praxis had come—to see if this was worth it anymore. It wasn't, Jak knew it wasn't, and while that was the smallest, quietest victory he'd ever managed, it was more than he'd hoped for in a lifetime.

Praxis growled, spun—Jak heard him, limping forward—and grabbed Jak by the hair, pulling him up just slightly. Jak winced, tried to open his eyes and look, failed and fell limp again. Praxis spat in his ear, yelled that he should be dead, and Jak wished he had the strength to agree.

Why couldn't he be dead like all the others? Why was he still here?

Why…?

The two continued back and forth for a long moment; he only understood bits and pieces, snatches of conversation and orders and a spike of fear from Erol when Praxis moved too close.

Then there was a hand on his chest and hot breath on his face and he opened his eyes for Erol—he could manage it for Erol—to just look at him.

"I'll be back later," he said, smooth and sleek and as much a threat as it was a promise. Jak didn't need to be told, and knew that Erol was putting on a show for Praxis. Erol would always be back later, he was the only constant in this place. The only one that Jak couldn't kill.

With that Erol let go, turned and followed Praxis out. Jak was alone.

He lay there for what only felt like a moment, three or four beats of his slowed heart, before his ears picked up on something else. A low drone, the frantic thrum of a much smaller heart beating with all its might, a voice. A voice he knew.

…It was impossible.

A weight on his chest, the smell of sand and sunshine and green growing things, a flash of orange and yellow and red in his memory, and that _voice_ in his ears.

"Jak, it's me! Daxter!"

But Daxter was dead. Jak killed him. He _remembered_ killing him, still couldn't get the taste of his blood out of his mouth.

He forced his eyes open, but couldn't make them focus. There was yellow and orange and red and brown and silver and blue, dark blue, wonderfully familiar dark blue. He closed his eyes again, relaxed back against the chair. No, this was a dream. It had been so long since the last that he could recall, but the eco must have woken up a new dream in him. A good dream. This Daxter wasn't dead—he wasn't changed back, but he wasn't dead.

It hurt to know that it was just a good dream.

Daxter went on, talking and babbling and being _Daxter_—more Daxter than the one he'd killed, alive and awake and too loud for his own good, familiar and _right_ and not going anywhere—moving and kicking and flailing.

Then he dropped to his knees on Jak's chest, tugged on the scarf Erol had given him. Two years, he said. Had it really only been two years? It felt like longer, like eternity, but Erol hadn't ever given him another happy anniversary, had mentioned his age on a couple forms enough to keep the timing straight.

Two years. It had really been only two years. This Daxter knew that. He sounded right, he smelled right, he felt right. And he wasn't dead.

"Say something!" Daxter pleaded. "Just this once!"

Jak took a breath, and suddenly everything made sense.

It was a lie. A test. It wasn't Daxter, it was something else, someone else, some poor little boy who was in here for something he couldn't have deserved, who'd died by Jak's hand and on Jak's teeth.

Not Daxter.

It had been another one of Praxis' tests. An assessment.

He'd passed, but it was still a lie.

_Praxis'_ lie.

In that instant, all the rage he'd put out, all the fury he'd bottled away with the murder of his best friend and his only hope, flared back to life in brilliant electric violet, flashing and stinging behind his eyes.

**OOOOOOOO**

_Oh god, just once,_ Daxter pleaded, prayed in the moment of silence after he spoke. Jak's features—already so different than what Daxter remembered—twisted even further, muscles in his jaw tensing as he shook his head. _Don't let him be dying, please, don't say I'm too late, don't make this something I can't fi—_

Jak opened his eyes, pupils tightening to prinpricks amid that pain-darkened blue, and his voice emerged in a rugged growl.

"I'm gonna _kill_ Praxis!"

Instantly Daxter slammed both hands over his mouth. Oh god, Precursors, that was worse than him being mute. So much worse. Jak was a hero, not a murderer, he didn't kill just to kill!

What had either of them done to deserve a fate like this?

"Shh!" Daxter hissed, pulling back to gesture with one hand, the other still on Jak's chapped lips. "Right now, we gotta get you outta here."

Jak closed his eyes, breath heaving, and Daxter's fur stood on end as electricity crackled through the air around him. He shook it off, fought to shake it off, and hopped over to survey one of the shackles binding Jak's wrists. "Just lemme figure out how to open the security locks on the chair, so that—"

He glanced back at Jak, and his blood went to _ice_ as he saw Jak's skin turn pale, every muscle in his body tensing and expanding, clenched teeth suddenly too sharp and hair a thick, bristling white.

He jumped just as the snakes of electricity shot out around Jak and he ripped himself from his bonds, sitting up and looking at himself, at his bone-white hands and—and, Precursors, he had _claws_.

Daxter knew with cruel finality then that there was no fixing this. Ever. He was just too late.

Much, much too late.

**OOOOOOOO**

It was like…falling. Like teetering on the very edge of _nothing_. Like standing on a boat in the middle of the ocean and spinning around with his arms outstretched, eyes wide and cast upward, straight into burning-white clouds.

And he did burn, fire lighting inside his skull, and the rage that set it to light sharpened into a knife through his chest. No turning back, no giving up. It was amazing.

The only surviving Dark Warrior was ready to fight his war.

He looked away from his hands—claws again, he hadn't had claws in so long—and pushed himself off the chair. He stumbled, bones groaning under the weight and skin screaming at the motion, and bent slightly to ease the pain. It felt better to curve his back like this, to hunker down and loosen his stance and stand like every bone in his body was loose, bent and twisted slightly beneath his eco-tempered musculature.

Black eyes—just black, no blue, barely a hint of violet where the light hit them—narrowed slightly at the flash of orange and yellow before him, shifting and weaving in its place.

Jak moved forward.

_Kill it,_ cried the blade that shattered his psyche, that part of him that always hissed and cackled and whispered horrible things in the silence, reveled in the carnage Jak's masters let him create. _I can kill it and eat it so I'll be strong, strong enough to kill Praxis, strong enough to laugh when Erol falls. Stronger than anyone, better than everyone, more than everything all put together._

It was just a lie anyway, wasn't it? Just another test. Another assessment. Like the one he'd killed before. If he killed this one, then he'd be complete, he'd be a success, Erol and Praxis would come back and he could laugh in their faces and strike and watch the life drain out of Praxis' eyes when he ripped his heart out through his throat.

All he had to do was kill this one, the last one, and he could—

"Jak, it's me!"

…You?

He was frantic, screaming and retreating, closer and closer to the edge. "Your old pal Daxter, remember?"

Jak gave a guttural growl as he moved in to strike, but broke off with a jerk. His eco-clouded, fury-tainted vision cleared. He blinked, eyes wide, and his voice shook.

"…Daxter?"

The sudden shift back was dizzying, but not painful. He stumbled again as muscles shrunk and bones untwisted, horns disappeared into his hair and claws retracted into his fingers.

It was Daxter. Really and truly, not a dream or a test. Daxter. He'd almost—

But just almost. Jak had stopped himself.

"What the _heck_ was that?!" Daxter hollered, waving his hands around as he came forward. His fur still stood up down his back, hackles raised reflexively, but his tone filled the void where discomfort and anxiety could have rooted.

Daxter knew it, too; knew exactly what he was doing. If he filled the silence he'd be safe, Jak wouldn't have time to get turned around again, that _thing_ wouldn't come back—and he wouldn't have time to be _absolutely terrified_ of his best friend.

"_Jeeeez_," he said dramatically, one hand on his hip and the other waving off in front of him as he looked up at Jak. "Remind me not to piss you off!"

Jak stared, blinking rapidly, and opened his mouth to say something, anything, give _words_ to the friend he hadn't killed. Daxter deserved words, more words than Erol had gotten, more words than Praxis had stolen, more words than anyone in the world. He'd kept his promise. He came back. He remembered.

But all that emerged from Jak's mouth was a short, ragged cough.

Daxter's expression turned almost sympathetic, apologetic, pained, but it faded all too quickly and he waved his hands for Jak to follow. "C'mon, Tall Dark and Gruesome," he smiled, and it was only _just_ forced. "We're outta here."

Jak took a step, and Daxter hopped up onto his shoulder, settling in instantly. It felt different—to both of them—but for that moment, that instant as they looked at each other and Jak began the tired trek forward, it didn't matter how different it felt, or how wrong all this was.

They were together again; inseparable and perfect, the greatest heroes their world had ever seen. Daxter tugged lightly at Jak's tunic, the word "criminal" emblazoned across his chest in crimson, and gave him a nudge in the back with his tail. "I got you some new threads," he said cheerfully, nodding toward the bundle he'd thrown up upon his arrival. "Put 'em on."

He nodded, sitting on the floor and urging Daxter off with a quick nudge of his shoulder, then pulled off his shirt with one hand.

Daxter almost pulled back as he held up the new tunic, watching as grey-green lifted away to reveal Jak's thin, bony frame. He could count his ribs, count his _vertebrae_, but couldn't possibly begin to count the number of scars slashing and crosshatching his skin.

He swallowed, held up the blue shirt—blue, Jak's favorite color, with long sleeves because this place was so much colder than Sandover—and held his ground. Jak took the garment and pulled it on without a word.

**OOOOOOOO**

It took three hours to navigate the prison. Three hours of moving from level to level, jumping to platforms they weren't supposed to be standing on and slamming grey-tattooed faces into the floor to keep from being hurt.

Jak was amazing. Daxter hung on tight to his shoulderplate as he spun and kicked and jumped, and he tried not to think about how much better Jak was at this than he had been, the connotations behind the thought definitely _not_ where he wanted his head right now. He settled for being filled with a sort of impressed wonder.

At least until the first time Jak grabbed one of the guards he'd knocked out by his head and dragged him far too easily to shove him off the edge, down into the dark.

Daxter shivered and pulled into himself a little. It was smart, really. Thorough. But understanding that didn't make it any less scary to see Jak doing it.

They moved on, down a refuse slide, into eco-contaminated water that flashed when Jak touched it, the particles of dark reacting to his presence. Daxter pointed to a stack of crates, and Jak just nodded before climbing up over them, onto the platform, and then finally jumped out the ventilation window.

He landed, straightened, and then his legs gave out.

Daxter clung to the metal plate as Jak fell, holding steady. "Hey, _hey_! You okay?"

Jak sat with his legs splayed in front of him, hands in his lap, eyes closed. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth as wide as he could—wide enough for Daxter to see that his teeth were still a little sharper than he remembered—and took in a deep gulp of air.

It wasn't clean, not by any means, but it was cool and damp and alive, chilled under moonlight and moved through trees and clouds and _sky_.

Precursors, it was wonderful.

Daxter put a hand on the side of Jak's head, giving his scarf a tug. "Jak?"

"I'm fine," he said at last, giving a slanted smile, opening his eyes and looking up at the stars. His brow creased. "What time is it?" His voice was deep and rough and strong, unfamiliar, but for this moment it was only just barely discontent, curious instead of tortured.

Daxter shrugged. "I dunno…'round midnight?"

Jak's smile faded a little. "Too bad…"

"Why?"

He turned and looked at Daxter then, and his eyes were _so_ _blue_ it was easy to believe that there was no blackness hiding in there, easy to forget just for now that there was a monster hiding just beneath the surface of everything Jak was.

"I want to see the sun."

A moment passed, then Daxter smiled. He patted Jak's back with his tail, waved a hand in dismissal. "Oh c'mon, I can wrangle up the sun for yah," his grin broadened. "Just give me a couple hours."

Jak gave him a look, the same kind he gave him when he slipped on a patch of wet grass outside the farmer's house back home, and Daxter felt lighter than he had in _years_. It passed too quickly, replaced by an almost businesslike interest.

"Anywhere good to see it come up?"

Daxter nodded. "Yeah. Yeah! I know this _sweet_ spot, just a little ways away."

Jak stood up, Daxter pointed, and he started off. For just this moment, too short a moment, the darkness in him and the thirst for vengeance he'd been harboring for years wasn't enough to pull him down.

He had air, a sunrise on its way, the stars and the moon until then, and Daxter, very much alive on his shoulder.

For this moment, things were _perfect_.

**OOOOOOOO**

**End**

**OOOOOOOO**


End file.
